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FORMATION 



CHRISTIAN CHARACTER 



FORMATION jfa 

CHRISTIAN CHARACTER, 

ADDRESSED TO THOSE WHO ARE SEEKING 
TO LEAD A RELIGIOUS LIFE: 



PEOGEESS OP THE CHEISTIAN LIFE; 



A SEQUEL TO THE "FORMATION OF THE 
CHRISTIAN CHARACTERS 



By HENRY WARE, Jr. 



NEW EDITION. 



BOSTON: 

AMERICAN UNITARIAN ASSOCIATION. 

1874. 






Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1856, 

By James Munroe and Company, 

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of MassachusetU 



s 

mff ), y PREFACE. 



In presenting to the religious public this 
L le book, the writer has only to say, that he 
undertook it because he thought that a work 
of this character was needed and would be 
welcome. During his active ministry, he had 
often felt the want of a book on personal re- 
ligion, different, in some respects, from any 
which had fallen in his way ; and when com 
pelled by ill health to relinquish his pastoral 
cares 3 he attempted to beguile some of the 
languid hours of a weary convalescence by 
efforts at composing such an one. The re- 
sult has come very far short of the idea which 
he had formed in his mind. The book was 
written at distant and uncertain intervals, upon 



VI PREFACE. 

journeys and in public houses, and has been 
now revised for the press in the midst of 
other cares, which have allowed no time for 
giving it the completeness he desired. Yet, 
as it belongs to a class of writings of whose 
importance he has the highest sense, and the 
multiplication of which, as well as the in- 
crease of a taste for their perusal, he esteems 
in the highest measure desirable, — he ven- 
tures to hope that this slight effort will not be 
wholly lost ; and that it may at least do some- 
thing towards exciting others to a preparation 
of more efficient works, which shall nourish 
the spirit of devotion, and extend the power 
of practical faith. 

Cambridge, May 16, 1831. 



CONTENTS. 



Introduction 1 

CHAPTER 1. 

The Nature of Religion, and what we are to 
seek. — Religion described — exemplified in the 
character of Christ — an arduous attainment — 
caution against low views • • • 5 

CHAPTER II. 

Our Power to obtain that which we seek. — The 
capacity for religion in human nature— educa- 
tion — the natural and the spiritual life — man's 
ability to do the will of God — false humility- 
salvation by grace 18 

CHAPTER III. 

Hie State of Mind in which the Inquirer should 
sustain himself. — Sense of unworthiness — anxi- 
ety of mind — rules to be observed respecting 
retirement, conversation, public meetings . 34 

CHAPTER IV. 
The Means of Religious Improvement . • 47 
I. Reading. — Duty of seeking religious knowl- 
edge — its advantages — time to be given to it 
- — the Bible — to be read for instruction in 
truth — for self- application- selection of other 
books .,«... 47 



Vlll CONTENTS. 

II. Meditation. — Its object — habitual thoughtful- 
ness — seasons of meditation — enjoyment to be 
expected in them — caution— three purposes to 

be answered . ... 68 

III. Prayer. — Its necessity and value — impor- 
tance of set times — method to ba observed- 
subjects — posture — language — frequency and 
brevity — ejaculatory prayer — faith, fervor, per- 
severance — answers to prayer — topics — in the 
name of Christ — caution — spirit of devotion . 82 

IV. Preaching. — A divine institution — necessity 
of preparation for hearing — a critical disposition 
—reflection on what has been heard — on keep- 
ing a record of sermons — weakness of memory 

— a taste for preaching to be preserved . . 119 

V. The Lord's Supper. — Its object two-fold, pro- 
fession of faith, and means of improvement — 
who to partake, and when — an affecting and 
comprehensive rite — an opportunity for silent 
worship — conclusion .... 136 

CHAPTER V. 

The Religious Discipline of Life. — The means 
of religion not to be mistaken for the end — 
watchfulness, daily duties and trials — discipline 
of the thoughts, dispositions, passions, appetites 
— conversation — ordinary department — guard to 
be kept over the principles — and over the 
habits 149 




FORMATION 



CHRISTIAN CHARACTER. 



INTRODUCTION. 

I am anxious to bespeak the reader's right 
attention before he enters on the following 
pages. They have been written only for 
those who are sincerely desirous of knowing 
themselves, and are bent upon forming a re- 
igious character. They can be of little 
nterest or value to any other person, or if 
read with any other view than that of self- 
improvement. I venture therefore to entreat 
every one, into whose hands the book may 
fall, to peruse it, as it has been written, not 
for entertainment, but for moral edification ; 
to read it at those seasons when he is seri- 
ously disposed, and can reflect upon tho 
1 



*Z INTRODUCTION. 

important topics presented to his view. 1 
am solicitous to aid him in the formation of 
his Christian character, and about every 
other result I ain indifferent. 

I would even presume, further, to warn 
one class of readers, and that not a small 
one, against a danger which lurks even in 
their established respect for religion. That 
general regard for it, which grows out of the 
circumstances of education and the habits 
of society, may be nystaken for a religious 
state of mind ; yet it is perfectly consistent 
with religious indifference. A man may 
sincerely honor, advocate, and uphold the 
religion of Christ on account of its general 
influence, its beneficial public tendency, its 
humane and civilizing consequences, without 
at all subjecting his own temper and life to 
its laws, or being in any proper sense a sub- 
ject of the peculiar happiness it imparts. 
This is perhaps not an infrequent case. 
Men need to be made sensible that religion 
is a personal thing, a matter of personal 
application and experience. Unless it is so 
considered, it will scarcely be an object of 
earnest pursuit, or of fervent, hearty interest, 



INTRODUCTION. 3 

nor can it exert its true and thorough in- 
fluence on the character. Indeed, its desi- 
rable influence upon the state of society can 
be gained only through this deep personal 
devotion to it of individuals ; because none 
but this is genuine religion, and the genuine 
only can exhibit the genuine power. 

I know of nothing to be more earnestly 
desired, than that men should cease to look 
upon religion as designed for others, and 
should come to regard it as primarily affect- 
ing themselves; that they should first and 
most seriously study its relation to their own 
hearts, and be above all things anxious about 
their own characters. His is but a partial 
and unsatisfactory faith, which is concerned 
wholly with the state of society in general, and 
allows him to neglect the discipline of his 
own affections and the culture of his own 
spiritual nature. He is but poorly fitted to 
honor or promote the cause of Christ, who has 
not first subjected his own soul to his holy 
government. There are men enough, when 
Christianity is prevalent and honorable, to 
lend it their countenance and pay it external 
homage. We want more thorough, consistent 



4 INTRODUCTION. 

exemplifications of its purity, benevolence, 
and spirituality. These can be found only in 
men, who love it for ks own sake, and because 
it is ' the wisdom of God and the power of God 
unto salvation/ and not simply because it is 
respectable in the eyes of the world, and 
favorable to the decency and order of the com- 
monwealth. It is for those who are seeking 
this end, and for such only, that I write. 



CHAPTER 1. 

THE NATURE OF RELIGION, AND WHAT WE AR1 
TO SEEK. 

In order to the intelligent and successful 
pursuit of any object, it is necessary, first of 
all, to have a definite conception of what we 
desire to effect or obtain. This is especially 
important in the study of Religion, both 
because of the extent and variety of the sub- 
ject itself, and because of the very different 
apprehensions of men respecting it. Many 
are disheartened and fail, in consequence of 
setting out with wrong views and false ex- 
pectations. From which cause religion itself 
suffers ; being made answerable for failures, 
which are entirely owing to the unreasonable 
anticipations and ill-directed efforts of those 
who enlisted in her service, but did not per- 
severe in it. 

Let us begin, then, with considering what 
is the object at which we aim when we seek 
a religious character. 
1* 



6 rHE NATURE OF RELIGION. 

Religion, in a general sense, is founded 
on man's relation and accountableness to his 
Maker : and it consists in cherishing the 
sentiments and performing the duties which 
thence result, and which belong to the other 
relations to other beings which God has ap- 
pointed him to sustain. 

Concerning these relations, sentiments, and 
duties, we are instructed in the Scriptures, 
especially in the New Testament. Religion, 
with us, is the Christian religion. It is found 
in the teachings and example of Jesus Christ 
It consists in the worship, the sentiments, and 
the character, which he enjoined, and which 
he illustrated in his own person. 

What you are to seek, therefore, is, under 
the guidance of Jesus Christ, to feel your 
relation to God, and to live under a sense of 
responsibility to him ; to cultivate assiduously 
those sentiments and affections which spring 
out of this responsible and filial relation, as 
well as those which arise out of your connex- 
ion with other men as his ofTspr i ng ; to per- 
form all the duties to Him and them, which 
appertain to this character and relation ; and 
to cherish that heavenward tendency of mind, 



THE NATURE OF RELIGION. 7 

which should spring from a consciousness of 
possessing an immortal nature. He who does 
all this is a religious man, or, in oth^j words, 
a Christian. 

You desire to be a Christian. To this are 
requisite three things : belief in the truths 
which the gospel reveals; possession of the 
state of mind which it enjoins ; and perform- 
ance of the duties which it requires: or, I 
may say, the subjection of the mind by faith, 
the subjection of the heart by love, the sub- 
jection of the will by obedience. This uni- 
versal submission of yourself to God is what 
you are to aim at. This is Religion. 

Observe how extensive a thing it is. It is a 
principle of the mind ; founded upon thought, 
reflection, inquiry, argument ; and leading to 
devotion and duty as most reasonable and 
suitable for intelligent beings. 

It is a sentiment or affection of the heart ; 
not the cold judgment of the intellect alone, in 
favor of what is right; but a warm, glowing 
feeling of preference and desire ; a feeling, 
which attaches itself in love to the Father of 
all and to all good beings ; which turns duty 
into inclination, and pursues virtue from im* 



8 THE NATURE OP RELIGION. 

pulse; which prefers and delights in that 
which is well pleasing to God, and takes an 
affectionate interest in the things to which the 
Saviour devoted himself. 

It is a rule of life; it is the law of God; 
causing the external conduct to correspond to 
the principle which is established, and the 
sentiment which breathes, within ; bringing 
every action into a conformity with the divine 
will, and making universal holiness the stan- 
dard of the character. 

The Scriptures represent religion under 
each of these different views. As a principle, 
it is called Faith ; and in this view is Faith 
extolled as the essential thing for life and 
sakation. We are to ' walk by faith.' We 
are ' saved by faith.' — As a sentiment, it is 
styled Love. Love to God and man is de- 
clared by the Saviour to be the substance of 
religion ; and the Apostles, especially John 
and Paul, every where represent this universal 
affection as the essence and the beauty of the 
Christian character. No one can read their 
language, and compare with it the life of 
Christ, without perceiving how essentially true 
religion is a sentiment of the heart. — As a 



THE NATURE OF RELIGION, 9 

(aw or rule, it is spoken of throughout the 
Scriptures. It is a commandment of God, 
requiring obedience. We are ' to do his will.' 
Christ is the ■ author of salvation to those that 
obey him.' ' If thou wilt enter into life, keep 
the commandments/ ' He who keepeth my 
commandments, he it is that loveth me.' 

In the general complexion of Scripture, and 
in many particular passages, these several 
views are united : thus we are told, that ' the 
fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suf- 
fering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, 
temperance ;' that the blessing of God belongs 
to the humble, penitent, meek, pure in heart, 
merciful, and peaceful ; that the Christian 
character consists in ' whatsoever is true, 
honest, just, pure, lovely, and of good report :' 
in adding to ' faith, virtue, knowledge, tem- 
perance, patience, godliness, brotherly kind- 
ness, and charity ;' and ' in denying ungodli- 
ness and wordly lusts, and living soberly, 
righteously, and godly.'* 

You see, then, what is the character of the 



* Gal. v. 22, 23.— Matthew, v. 3-9.— Philip, iv. 8. 
-2 Peter, i. 6, 7 —Titus, ii. 12. 

B 



10 THE NATURE OF RELIGION. 

religion which you are seeking. You per- 
ceive that it implies the absolute supremacy 
of the soul and its interests over all the ob- 
jects and interests of the present state; and 
that its primary characteristic is a certain state 
of mind and affections. It is not the external 
conduct, not the observance of the moral law 
alone, which constitutes a religious man ; 
but the principles from which he acts, the 
motives by which he is governed, the state of 
his heart. A principle of spiritual life per- 
vades his intellectual nature, gives a complexion 
to his whole temper, and is the spring of that 
moral worth, which is in other men the result 
of education, circumstances, or interest. He 
is actuated by a prevailing sense of God, and 
the desire of a growing resemblance to his 
moral image. He is possessed with the 
perpetual consciousness of his immortality ; 
and is not ashamed to deny himself any of the 
gratifications of the present hour, when there- 
by he may keep his mind more disengaged for 
the study of truth and the contemplation of his 
highest good. Living thus with his chief 
sources of happiness within him, he bears with 
equanimity the changes and trials of earth, 



THE KATI3RE OF RELIGION. 11 

and tastes something of the peculiar felicity of 
heaven, which is ' righteousness, and peace, 
and joy in a holy spirit ;' and, like his master, 
who sojourned below, but whose afFections 
were above, he does his Father's will as he 
passes through the world, but has treasured 
up his supreme good in his Father's future 
presence. 

But if you would discern the full excellence 
and loveliness of the religious life, do not 
rest satisfied with studying the law, or musing 
over the descriptions of it. Go to the perfect 
pattern, which has been set before the be- 
liever for his guidance and encouragement. 
Look unto Jesus, the author and finisher of 
your faith. In him are exhibited all the vir- 
tues which you are to practise, all the affec- 
tions and graces which you are<to cultivate. 
In him is that rich assemblage of beautiful 
and attractive excellences, which has been 
the admiration of all reflecting men, the 
astonishment and eulogy of eloquent unbe- 
lievers, and the guide, consolation, and trust, 
of faithful disciples. In the dignity and 
sweetness which characterize him, how 
Wrongly do we feel that there is much more 



12 THE NATURE OF RELIGION. 

than a display of external qualities, conform- 
ity to a prescribed rule, and graceful propriety 
of outward demeanor. Nothing is more 
striking than the evident connexion of every 
thing which he said and did with something 
internal. The sentiment and disposition 
which reign within, are constantly visible 
through his exterior deportment; and we re- 
gard his words and his deeds less as distinct 
outward things, than as expressions or repre- 
sentations of character. As, in looking on 
certain countenances, we have no thought of 
color, feature, or form, but simply of the 
moral or intellectual qualities which they 
suggest ; so, in contemplating the life of 
Jesus, we find ourselves perpetually looking 
beyond his mere actions, and fixing our 
thoughts on the qualities which they indicate. 
His life is but the expressive countenance of 
his soul. We feel, that, though in the midst 
of present things, he is led by principles, 
wrapt in thoughts, pervaded by sentiments, 
which are above earth, unearthly; that he is 
walking in communion with another sphere ; 
and that the objects around him are matters 
of interest to him, no further than as thev 



THE NATURE OF RELIGION. 13 

afford materials for the exercise of his benevo- 
lence, and opportunities for doing his Fa 
ther's will 

This is the personification of religion. 
This is the model which you are to imitate. 
And it is when you shall be imbued with 
this spirit, when you shall be filled with 
this sentiment, when your words, actions, 
and life, shall be only the spontaneous ex- 
pression of this state of mind, — it is then 
that you will have attained the religious 
character, and become spiritually the child 
of God. You will have built up the king- 
dom of God within you ; its purity, its de- 
votion, and its peace, will be shed abroad in 
your heart, and thence will display them- 
selves in the manners and conduct of your life. 

To attain and perfect this character is to 
be the object of your desire, and the busi- 
ness of your life. You must never lose sight 
of it. In all that you learn, think, feel, and 
do, you are to have reference to this end. 
Whatever tends to promote this, you are to 
cherish and favor. Whatever hinders this, 
or in any degree operates injuriously upon 
it, you are to discountenance and shun. AH 
2 



14 THE NATURE OF RELIGION. 

that gives bias to your passions and appe- 
tites, to your inclinations and thoughts, to 
your opinion of yourself, to your conduct 
toward others, your private or public employ- 
ment of your time, your business and gains, 
your recreation and pleasures, is to be judged 
of by this standard, and condemned or ap- 
proved accordingly. You are to feel that 
nothing is of such consequence to you as the 
Christian character ; that to form this is the 
very work for which you were sent into the 
world ; that if this be not done, you do noth- 
ing, — you had better never have been born; 
for your life is wasted without effecting its 
object, and your soul enters eternity without 
having secured its salvation. The provisions 
of God's mercy are slighted, and, for you, the 
Saviour has lived and died in vain. 

It is plain, then, that the work to which you 
address yourself is arduous as well as delight- 
ful. It is not to be done in a short time, nor 
by a few indolent or violent efforts ; not by an 
exercise of speculative reason, nor by an ex- 
citement of feeling, nor by assent to profes- 
sions, forms, and rites ; not by a love of hear- 
ing the word preached, nor by attention 



THE NATURE OF RELIGION. 15 

to the morals of ordinary life, nor by stead- 
fastness in the virtues which are easy and 
pleasant ; — but only by a surrender of the 
whole man and the entire life to the will of 
God, in faith, affection, and action ; by a 
thorough imitation of Jesus in the devout 
and humble temper of his mind, in the spiritu- 
ality of his affections, and in the purity and 
loveliness of his conduct. Any thing less 
than this, any partial, external, superficial con- 
formity to a rule of decent living or ritual 
observance, must be wholly insufficient. For 
it cannot mould and rule the character, can- 
not answer the claims of the Creator upon 
his creatures, cannot prepare for the happi 
ness which Jesus has revealed ; a happiness 
so described, and so constituted, that none can 
be fitted for it, or be capable of enjoying it, but 
those who are earnestly and entirely conformed 
to the divine will. Who can relish the spirit- 
ual pleasures of eternity, that has not become 
spiritually minded? Who could enjoy admis- 
sion to the society of Jesus and the spirits of 
the just made perfect, that is not like them * 
Why should one hope for heaven, and how 
expect to be happy there, if he have not 



16 THE NATURE OP RELIGION. 

formed a taste for its habits of purity, worship, 
and love? 

Be on your guard, therefore, from the 
first, against setting your mark too low. Do 
not allow yourself to be persuaded that any 
thing less is Religion, or will answer for you, 
than its complete and highest measure. Re- 
member that these things must be ' in you and 
abound.' The higher you aim, the higher 
you will reach ; but if content with a low 
aim, you will forever fall short. The scriptural 
word is Perfection. Strive after that. Never 
be satisfied whne short of it, and then you 
will be always improving. But if you set 
yourself some definite measure of goodness, 
if you prescribe to yourself some limit in 
devotion and love, you wnl by and by fancy 
you have reached it, and thus will remain 
stationary in a condition far below what 
you might have attained. Remember always, 
tfiat you are capable of being more devout, 
more charitable, more humble, more devoted 
*nd earnest in doing good, better acquainted 
with religious truth; and that, as it is impos- 
sible there should be any pcmil to the prog- 
ress of the human soul, so u is impossible 



THE NATURE OF RELIGION. 17 

that the endeavor of the soul should be too 
exalted. It is because men do not think of 
this, or do not practically apply it, that so 
many, even of those who intend to govern 
themselves by religious motives, remain so 
lamentably deficient in excellence. They 
adopt a low or a partial standard, and strive 
after it sluggishly, and thus come to a periou 
in religion before they arrive at the close of 
life. Happy they who are so filled with long- 
ings after spiritual good, that they go on im- 
proving to the end of their days. 



18 OUR POWER TO OBTAIN 



CHAPTER II. 

OUR POWER TO OBTAIN THAT WHICH WB 
SEEK. 

The account which has been given of reli- 
gion in the preceding chapter, shows it to be 
consonant to man's nature, and suited to the 
faculties with which God has endowed him. 
His soul is formed for religion, and the gospel 
has been adapted to the constitution of his 
soul. His understanding takes cognizance 
of its truths, his conscience applies them, his 
affections are capable of becoming interested in 
them, and his will of being subject to them. 
There can be no moment of existence, after 
he has come to the exercise of his rational 
faculties, at which this is not the case. As 
soon as he can love and obey his parents, he 
can love and obey God ; and this is religion. 
The capacity of doing the one is the capacity 
of doing the other. 

It is true, the latter is not so universally 
done as the former ; but the cause is not, that 



THAT WHICH WE SEEK. 19 

religion is unsuited to the young, but that 
their attention is engrossed by visible objects 
and present pleasures. Occupied with these, 
it requires effort and pains-taking to direct 
the mind to invisible things ; to turn the 
attention from the objects which press them 
on every side, to the abstract, spiritual objects 
of faith. Hence it is easy to see, that the 
want of early religion is owing, primarily, 
to the circumstances in which childhood is 
placed, and, next, to remissness in education 
Worldly things are before the child's eye, 
and minister to its gratification every hour 
and every minute ; but religious things are 
presented to it only in a formal and dry way 
once a week. The things of the world are 
made to constitute its pleasures, those of 
religion are made its tasks. It is made to 
feel its dependence on a parent's love every 
hour ; but is seldom reminded of its depend- 
ence on God, and then perhaps only in some 
stated lesson, which it learns by compulsion, 
and not in the midst of the actual engage- 
ments and , pleasures of its little life. Jt 
partakes of the caresses of its human parents, 
and cannot remember the time when it 



20 OUR POWER TO OBTAW 

was not an object of their tenderness ; so 
that their image is interwoven with its very 
existence. But God it has never seen, and 
has seldom heard of him; his name and 
presence are banished from common conver- 
sation, and inferior and visible agents receive 
the gratitude for gifts which come from him. 
So also the parent's authority is immediate 
and visibly exercised, and obedience grows 
into the rule and habit of life. But the 
authority of God is not displayed in any 
sensible act or declaration ; it is only heard 
of at set times and in set tasks ; and thus it 
fails of becoming mingled with the principles 
of conduct, or forming a rule and habit of 
subjection. — In a word, let it be considered 
how little and how infrequently the idea of 
God is brought home to the child's mind, 
even under the most favorable circumstances, 
and how little is done to make him the 
object of love and obedience, in comparison 
with what is done to unite its affections 
to its parents ; while, at the same time, the 
spirituality and invisibility of the Creator 
render it necessary that even more should 
be done ; — and it will be seen that the WMtf 



THAT WHICH WE SEEK. 21 

of an early and spontaneous growth of the 
religious character is not owing to the want 
of original capacity for religion, but is to be 
traced to the unpropitious circumstances in 
which childhood is passed, and the want of 
uniform, earnest, persevering instruction. 

I have made this statement for two rea 
sons. First, because I think it points out 
the immense importance of a religious edu- 
cation, and is an urgent call upon parents 
for greater diligence in this duty. No pa- 
rent will deliberately say, in excuse for his 
Deglect, that his children are incapable of 
apprehending and performing their duty to 
God. He will perceive that the same opera- 
tion of circumstances and of unceasing in- 
fluences, which has made them devoted to 
him, w r ould make them devoted to God ; and 
religion is that state of mind toward God, 
which a good child exercises toward a parent. 
It is the same principle and the same affec- 
tions, fixing themselves on an infinitely higher 
object. Let parents be aware of this, and 
they will feel the call and the encouragement 
to a more systematic and affectionate attention 
to the religious instruction of their children. 



22 OUR POWER TO OBTAIN 

I have made this statement, moreover, be- 
cause it offers a guide to those who have 
passed through childhood without permanent 
religious impressions, and are now desirous 
of attaining them. It is principally for such 
that I write. They may be divided into 
many classes ; some more and some less 
distant from the kingdom of God ; some 
profligate, some indifferent ; some with much 
goodness of outward performance, but with 
no internal principle of faith and piety ; and 
some without even external conformity to 
right. But however differing in their past 
course of life, and in the peculiar habits 
and dispositions which characterize them, in 
one thing they now agree, — they are sensible 
of their errors and sins, and desire to apply 
themselves to that true and living way, which 
shall lead them to the favor of God and 
everlasting life. They feel that there is a 
great work to be done, a great change to be 
effected, either internally or externally, or 
both, and they are desirous to learn in what 
manner it shall be accomplished. 

To such persons the statement which I 
have made above may be useful. Let then? 



THAT WHICH WE SEEK. 23 

look back to it, and reflect upon it. God 
has given them powers for doing the work 
which he has assigned to them. That work 
is expressed in one word — the comprehen- 
sive name Religion. That work they should 
have begun and perseveringly pursued from 
their earliest days. But they have done 
otherwise. They have wandered from duty, 
and been unfaithful to God. They have 
gone far from him, like the unwise prodigal, 
and wasted the portion he gave them in 
vicious or unprofitable pursuits. They have 
cultivated the animal life ; they have lived 
c according to the flesh.' They need to cul- 
tivate the spiritual life ; to live ' according 
to the spirit/ There is an animal life, and 
there is a spiritual life. Man is born into 
the first at the birth of his body ; he is born 
into the secbnd when he subjects himself to 
the power of religion, and prefers his ration- 
al and immortal to his sensual nature. Dur- 
ing his earliest days, he is an animal only, 
pursuing, like other animals, the wants and 
desires of his body, and consulting his pres- 
ent gratification and immediate interest. But 
it is not designed that he shall continue thus. 



24 OUR POWER TO OBTAIN 

He in made for something better and higher 
He has a nobler nature and nobler interests. 
He must learn to live for these ; and this 
learning to feel and value his spiritual nature, 
and to live for eternity ; this change from 
the animal and earthly existence of infancy, 
to a rational, moral, spiritual existence, — this 
it is to be born into the spiritual life. This is 
a renovation of principle and purpose through 
which every one must pass. Every one must 
thus turn from his natural devotion to things 
earthly to a devotion to things heavenly. 
This change it is the object of the gospel to 
effect ; and we seek no less than this, when 
we seek the influence of the gospel on our 
souls. 

Now, the persons of whom I am speaking 
have not yet acquired this new taste and prin- 
ciple. It has made with them no part of 
the process of education. It is yet to be 
acquired. They are desirous of acquiring 
it. Let them first be persuaded of its absolute 
necessity. Until this is felt, nothing can be 
effectually done. Without it, there will be no 
such strenuous effort for religious attainment 
B3 is necessary to success. Many persons 



THAT WHICH WE SEEK. 25 

have at times, some have frequently, a certain 
conviction upon their minds, that they are 
not passing their lives as they ought, and 
they make half a resolution to do differently. 
They are ill content with their condition ; they 
long to be free from the reproaches of con- 
science ; they wish to be assured that their 
souls are safe. But, although uneasy and dis- 
satisfied, they take no steps towards improving 
their condition, because they have no proper 
persuasion of its absolute necessity. They must 
be deeply convinced of this. They must strong- 
ly feel that a state of indifference is a state of 
danger ; that they are on the brink of ruin, 
so long as they are alienated from God, and 
governed by passion, appetite, and inclination, 
rather than a sense of duty. And such is 
the power of habit, that they in vain hope to 
be delivered from its bondage, and to become 
consistent followers of Christ, unless a strong 
feeling shall lead them to make a resolute, 
energetic effort. If they allow themselves to 
fancy that it will be time enough by and by ; 
that, after all, the case is not very desperate, 
but can be remedied at any time ; and that 
ft would be a pity yet to abandon their pleas- 
3 



26 OUR POWER TO OBTAIN 

ant vices; — then there is no hope for them, 
They are cherishing the most dangerous of all 
states of mind ; a state, which prevents all real 
desire for improvement, is continually weaken- 
ing their power of change, and absolutely 
destroys the prospect of amendment. They 
must begin the remedy by a persuasion of its 
necessity. They must feel it so strongly, that 
they cannot rest content without immediately 
subjecting themselves to the dominion of reli- 
gion, — as a starving man feels the necessity of 
immediately applying to the search for food. 
No man will give himself to the thoughts, 
studies, devotions, and charities, of a religious 
life, who does not find them essential to the 
satisfaction and peace of his mind, that is, 
who is satisfied without them. Cherish there- 
fore the conviction of this necessity. Cultivate 
by every possible means a deep persuasion 
of the truth, that the service and love of God 
are the only sufficient sources of happiness ; 
and that only pain and shame can await him 
who withholds his soul from the light and 
purity for which it was made. 

Feeling thus the importance of a religious 
life, let them next be persuaded that its attain- 



THAT WHICH WE SEEK. 27 

ment is entirely in their power. It is but to 
use the faculties which God has given them, 
in the work and with the aid which God 
has appointed. No one will venture to 
say that he is incapable of this. A religious 
life, as we have seen, grows out of the rela- 
tions in which man stands to God and his fel- 
low men ; and as he is made accountable for 
the performance of the duties of these rela- 
tions, it is impossible that he is not created 
capable of performing them. It were as rea- 
sonable to urge that a child cannot love and 
obey its father and mother, as that a man 
cannot love and obey God. 

Yet it so happens, that some profess to be 
deterred from a religious course, by the appre- 
hension that it is not in their power; it is 
something which it must be given them to 
do ; a work which must be wrought in them 
by a supernatural energy ; they must wait till 
their time has come. But every apology for 
irreligion, founded on reasons like this, is evi- 
dently deceptive. It proceeds upon wrong 
notions respecting the divine aid imparted to 
man. That this aid is needed and is given in 
the Christian life, is a true and comforting 



28 OTTR POWER TO OBTAIN 

doctrine. But that it is to supersede human 
exertion, that it is a reason for indolence 
and religious neglect, is a false and pernicious 
notion, — countenanced, I will venture to at 
firm, by no one whose opinion or example is 
honored or followed in the Christian church 
On the contrary, all agree in declaring with 
the Apostle, that while ' God works in us to 
will and to do,' we are to ' work out our own 
salvation ;' and to do it with ' fear and trem- 
bling,' because, after all, these divine influences 
will be vain without our own diligence. 

In some persons, this notion takes the form 
of a real or fancied humility. They fear lest 
they be found seeking salvation through their 
own works, and relying on their own merits. 
Sut what a strange humility this, which leads 
to a disregard of the divine will, and disobedi- 
ence to the divine commands ; which virtually 
says, * I will continue in sin that grace may 
abound !' Let me ask, too, Who will trust to 
receive salvation without actual obedience? 
Where is it promised to those who will do 
nothing in the way of self-government and 
active virtue? Where is it ottered to any, but 
those who seek it by ' bringing forth fruits 



THAT WHICH WE SEEK. 29 

meet for repentance,' and by ' patient continu- 
ance in well-doing V 

And let none fear lest this make void the 
grace of God. For how is it that grace leads 
to salvation ? Is it by arbitrarily fitting the 
soul for it, and ushering it into heaven with- 
out its own cooperation ? Or is it not rather 
by opening a free highway to the kingdom of 
life, through which all may walk and be saved? 
This is what the Saviour has done ; he has 
made the path of life accessible and plain, has 
thrown open the gate of heaven, has taught 
men how to enter in and reach their bliss. 
Whoever pursues this path, and enters 
1 through the gate into the city,' is saved by 
grace. For though he has used his own 
powers to travel on this highway, yet he did 
not establish that highway ; nor could he have 
traversed it without guidance and aid; nor 
could he have opened for himself the door of 
entrance. Heaven is still a free gift, inasmuch 
as it is granted by infinite benignity to those 
who did not, do not, and cannot deserve it. 
Yet there are certain conditions to be perform- 
ed. And to refuse the performance of those 
conditions, on the plea that you thus derogato 
3* 



30 OUR POWER TO OBTAIN 

from the mercy of God, and do something to 
purchase or merit happiness, is a madness 
which ought to be strenuously opposed, or it 
will leave you to perish in your sins. 

These two things, then, may be regarded as 
axioms of the religious life ; first, that a 
man's own labors are essential to his salvation ; 
second, that his utmost virtue does nothing 
toward purchasing or meriting salvation, 
When he has done all his duty, he is still, as 
the Saviour declares, but an ' unprofitable ser- 
vant/ He has been more than recompensed 
by the blessings of this present life. That 
the happiness of an eternal state may be 
attained, in addition to these, is a provision of 
pure grace ; .and it is mere insanity to neglect 
the duties of religion through any fear lest 
you should seem to be seeking heaven on the 
ground of your own desert. Virtue would be 
your duty, though you were to perish forever 
at the grave ; and that God has opened to his 
children the prospect of a future inheritance 
infinitely disproportioned to their merit, is only 
a further reason for making virtue your first 
and chief pursuit. 

It is true there is great infirmity in human 



THAT WHICH WE SEEK. 31 

nature, and you will find yourself perplexed 
and harassed by temptations from without 
and within. Passion, appetite, pleasure, and 
care, solicit and urge you, and render it not 
easy to keep yourself unspotted from the 
world. But what then? Does this excuse 
the want of exertion? Is this a good reason 
for sitting idly with folded arms, and saying, 
It is all vain ; I am wretchedly weak ; I can- 
not undertake this work, till God gives me 
strength 1 Believe me, there is no humility 
in this. Think of yourself and of your de- 
serts as humbly as you please ; but to think so 
meanly of the powers God has given you, as 
to deem them insufficient for the work he has 
assigned you, is less humility than ingratitude 
and want of faith. Nothing is truer than 
this, — that your work is proportioned to your 
powers, and your trials to your strength. ' No 
temptation hath taken you but such as is com- 
mon to man; but God is faithful, who will 
not suffer you to be tempted above that ye 
are able; but will, with the temptation, also 
make a way to escape, that ye may be able to 
bear it.' Here is the manifestation of peculiar 
grace ; when a sincere and humble spirit, in 



32 OUR POWER TO OBTAIN 

its earnest search for the true way, encounters 
obstacles, hardships, and opposition, at this 
moment it is, that aid from on high is inter- 
posed. The promise to Paul is fulfilled, ' My 
strength is made perfect in weakness.' ' The 
spirit helpeth our infirmities.' Let it be, 
then, that human nature is weak ; no work is 
appointed greater than its power, and it ' can 
do all things through Christ who dtrength- 
eneth.' 

Be thoroughly persuaded, therefore, that the 
work before you is wholly within your power. 
Nothing has a more palsying effect on one's 
exertions in any enterprise, than the doubt 
whether he be equal to it. Something like 
confidence is necessary to enable him to pur- 
sue it vigorously and perseveringly. It is as 
necessary in action, as the Apostle represents 
it to be in prayer. 'He that wavereth or 
doubteth is like a wave of the sea, driven by 
the wind and tossed.' But when he has con- 
fidence, as the Christian may have, that his 
strength is equal to his task, that he cannot fail 
if he resolutely go forward, and that all hinder- 
ances must disappear before a steady and in- 
dustrious zeal, which leans upon God, and is 



THAT WHICH WE SEEK. 33 

strong in the power of the Lord, — then he 
presses on with alacrity, encounters trials with- 
out alarm, and is ' steadfast, immovable, al- 
ways abounding in the work of the Lord ; 
knowing that his labor is not in vain in the 
Lord ;' for that nothing but his own fault can 
bar him out of heaven, or cause him to fail of 
eternal life. 

And all this is perfectly consistent with the 
deepest humility, and the profoundest sense of 
dependence on God. 



34 THE STATE OF MIND 



CHAPTER III. 

THE STATE OF MIND IN WHICH THE INQUIRER 
SHOULD SUSTAIN HIMSELF. 

All this, I say, is perfectly consistent with 
the deepest humility and most unassuming de- 
pendence upon God. If it were not, it would 
be false and wrong ; for a humble and depen- 
dent disposition is a prime requisite in the 
Christian ; a grace to be especially cultivated 
at the beginning of the religious course. It is 
concerning this state of mind that we are now 
to speak. 

Deep religious impressions are always ac- 
companied by a sense of personal un worthi- 
ness, and not unfrequently commence with 
it. It is man's acquaintance with himself, 
which leads him most earnestly to seek the ac- 
quaintance of God, and to perceive the need 
of his favor. The sense of sin, the feeling 
that his life has not been right, that his heart 
is not pure, that his thoughts, dispositions, ap- 
petites, passions, have not been duly regulated, 



NECESSARY FOR THE INQUIRER. 35 

that he has lived according to his own will, and 
not that of God, that, if taken from his worldly 
possessions, he has no other object of desire 
and affection to which his heart could cling, 
if called to judgment for the use of his powers 
and privileges, he must be speechless and 
hopeless ; all this rises solemnly to his mind, 
and sinks him low under a sense of ill desert 
and shame. He sees that he might have been, 
ought to have been, better; that he might 
have been, ought to have been, obedient to 
God, and a follower of all that is good. He 
cannot excuse himself to himself. Every effort 
to palliate his guilt, only shows him its aggrava- 
tion ; and he cries out, with the penitent prodi- 
gal, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven, and 
in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be call- 
ed thy son.' He has offended against knowl- 
edge and opportunity, and in spite of instruction 
and warning. He looks back to the early and 
innocent days, when, if his Saviour had been 
on earth, he might have taken him to his arms, 
and said, ' Of such is the kingdom of God.' 
But, alas ! how has he been changed ! He has 
parted with that innocence, he has strayed 
from the kingdom of heaven, he has denied 



3D THE STATE OF MIND 

and lost the image of his Maker. While he 
dwells on this thought of what he was, and 
what he might have become, and contrasts it 
with what he is, he is filled with remorse. He 
exaggerates to himself all his failings, paints, 
in blacker colors than even the truth, all his 
iniquities, counts himself the chief of sinners, 
and is almost ready to despair of mercy. 

When the mind is strongly agitated in this 
way, it is surprising how the characters of very 
different men become, as it were, equalized. 
Of many individuals, differing in the most 
various ways as regards the number and nature, 
the magnitude and circumstances of their of- 
fences, and most widely separated in the ac- 
tual scale of demerit, each, at such a season, 
regards himself as the most guilty of men. 
Sometimes the high-wrought expressions, in 
which the victim of remorse vents the excru- 
ciating anguish of his mind, are accounted af- 
fectation and hypocrisy. But there can be no 
good reason to doubt that they are entirely sin- 
cere. The man honestly describes himself as 
he 3eems to himself at the time. He is, in his 
own eyes, the wretch lie draws. And this is 
very easily explained. He sees at one view 



NECESSARY FOR THE INQUIRER. 37 

all his past sins, open and secret, his thought- 
lessness, ingratitude, negligence, and omis- 
sions, his depraved inclinations, evil desires, 
and cherished lusts, which no one else knows, 
and which no one else could compare, as he 
can, with his privileges and obligations. All 
these he sets by the side, not of the hidden and 
private life of others, but of their decent public 
demeanor. He compares them, too, not with 
the standard of worldly, outward morality, but 
with the strict, searching, holy requisitions of 
the law of God. And in such a comparison, 
at such a moment, he cannot but regard him- 
self as most unworthy and depraved. 

And we need not be too anxious at once to 
correct this feeling. The abasement is well ; 
for no one can feel guilt too strongly, or ab- 
hor sin too deeply. The time will come, 
when he will learn to follow the direction of 
the Apostle, and ' think of himself soberly, 
as he ought tc think.' But at this first fair 
inspection of the deformities of his character, 
it is not to be expected that he should make 
his estimate with perfect sobriety. Only let 
every thing be done to guide, and soothe, and 
encourage him, and nothing to exasperate 
4 



38 THE STATE OP MIND 

his self-condemnation, or drive him to insanity 
or despair. 

But such a state of mind as I have describ- 
ed, though not uncommon, and by many 
cherished as the most desirable and suitable 
at the commencement of the religious life 
is by no means universal at that period, and 
cannot be regarded as essential. The expe- 
rience of different individuals in this respect 
greatly varies, and is much affected by temper 
and disposition, as well as by other circum- 
stances. Many excellent Christians have 
never been subjected to those violent and 
torturing emotions, which have shaken ana 
convulsed others. Their course has been 
placid and serene, though solemn and humble. 
They have felt their sin, and have mourned 
beneath it, and in deep humiliation have 
sought its forgiveness ; but without any thing 
of terrified emotion or gloomy despondency. 
They have been gently won to truth by the 
mild invitations of parental love, without 
needing the fearful denunciations of punish- 
ment and wrath to awaken them. This 
difference among individuals is owing partly, 
as I said, to constitutional difference of tern- 



NECESSARY FOR THE INQUIRER. 39 

perament, which renders it impossible that 
the same representations should affect all 
alike ; and partly to the different modes in 
which religion is presented to different minds ; 
having first appeared to some in its harsher 
features, as to the Jews on Sinai, and to others 
in the milder form of a Saviour's compassion 
But however this may be, and however the 
humiliation of one may wear a different 
complexion from that of another, it is a state 
of mind sincere and heartfelt in all, to be 
studiously cherished, and to be made per- 
manent in the character. 

In the beginning of the Christian life, this 
feeling assumes the form of anxiety, as it 
afterward leads to watchfulness. This word 
may, perhaps as well as any, describe the 
state of those for whom I am writing. They 
are anxious about themselves, abput their 
characters, their condition, their prospects. 
They are anxious to know what they shall 
do to be saved, and to gain satisfactory assu- 
rance that they shall be pardoned and accepted 
of God. This is a most reasonable solicitude. 
What can be more reasonable than such a 
solicitude for the greatest and most lasting 



40 THE STATE OF MIND 

good of man ? What more becoming a 
rational creature, whose eternal welfare is 
dependent on his own choice between good 
and evil, than this desire to know and pursue 
the right? this earnest thoughtfulness respect- 
ing his condition? and this inquiry for the 
true end of his being? If a person, hitherto 
thoughtless, is in this state of mind, he is to 
be congratulated upon it. We are to be 
thankful to God in his behalf, that another 
immortal soul is awake to its responsibility, 
and seeking real happiness. We would urge 
him to cherish the feelings which possess him; 
not with melancholy despondency ; not with 
superstitious gloom ; not with unmanly and 
unmeaning debasement; but with thoughtful, 
self-distrusting concern, with deliberate study 
for the path of duty, and a resolute purpose 
not to swe/ve from it. 

Remember that much depends, I might 
say, every thing depends, on the use you 
make of this your present disposition. Be 
faithful to it, obey its promptings, let it form 
:'n you the habit of devout reflection *nd 
religious action, and all must be well. The 
issue will be the Christian character, and the 



NECESSARY FOR THE INQUIRER. 4J 

soul's salvation. But refuse to cherish this 
disposition, drive it from you, smother and 
silence it, and you will probably do yourself 
an everlasting injury. ■ It is like putting 
out a fire which has just been lighted, and , 
which may with difficulty be kindled again. 
It is trifling with the sensibility of conscience, 
it is bringing hardness upon your heart ; and 
there is less prospect that you will afterward 
arrive at an habitual and controlling regard 
for your religious interests. This it is to 
1 quench the spirit.' 

Be sensible, therefore, that this is a critical 
moment in the history of your character, that 
it is in many respects the decisive point at 
which your destiny is to be determined. For 
now it is, in all probability, that the bias of 
your mind is to be determined for good or 
evil. Be sensible, then, how necessary it is 
that you keep alive, and cultivate by all possi- 
ble means, this tenderness of heart. Avoid 
every pursuit, engagement, and company, 
which you find to be inconsistent with it, or 
unfavorable to it, or tending to destroy it. 
Scenes at other times innocent, should now 
be shunned, if they operate to turn the current 
4* E 



42 THE STATE OF MIND 

of your affections ; for you are engaging in a 
great work, the giving your heart a permanent 
bias toward God. and it ought not to be 
interrupted. While this is doing, you can 
well afford to withdraw from many scenes you 
might otherwise frequent, and indeed you can 
ill afford the risk of exposing yourself to their 
influence. 

It may be well to observe another caution. 
Say nothing of your thoughts and feelings 
to any, but one or two confidential friends. 
Many a religious character has been spoiled 
in the forming, by too much talk with too 
many persons. The best religious character 
is formed in retirement, by much silent 
reflection, and private reading and prayer. 
What the soul needs above all things, is to 
commune with itself and with God ; then it 
is established, strengthened, settled. But if 
a man go out from his closet, and seek for 
instruction and guidance by talking with all 
who will talk with him, he fritters away his 
feelings ; his frame becomes less deeply and 
essentially spiritual ; words take the placa 
of sentiment; and he is very likely to be* 
come a talkative, fluent, superficial religion- 



NECESSARY FOR THE INQUIRER. 43 

ist, with much show of sound doctrine, and 
a goodly readiness of sound speech, but 
without substantial principle. Shun, there- 
fore, rather than seek, much communication 
with many persons. But some counsel and 
encouragement you may need. Apply, there- 
fore, to your minister. He is your legitimate 
and true counsellor, and he will be glad, in 
friendly and confidential intercourse, to lead 
you on. You may have also some pious 
friend, to whom, possibly, you may unbosom 
yourself more freely than you have courage to 
do to your minister; and he may, in some 
particulars, give you aid, which the situation 
of the pastor may put it out of his power to 
afford. In this manner, feel your way along 
quietly, silently, steadily. Let the growth 
within you be like that of the grain of wheat, 
which germinates in secret, and springs up 
without observation, and attracts little notice 
of men, till it shows 'the ear and the full 
corn in the ear/ Be anxious to establish 
yourself firmly in the power of godliness, 
before you exhibit its form. 

In connexion with this, it may be well to 
add a caution on a kindred point. Do not 



44 THE STATE OF MIND 

spend too much time in public meetings. 
You will, of course, be desirous to hear the 
preaching of the gospel. You feel as if you 
could not hear it too often or too much. You 
wonder that preaching should never before 
have seemed so interesting. You listen with 
unstopped ears; and prayers, hymns, and 
sermons, fall upon your spirit as if you had 
been gifted with a new sense. It is well that 
it is so. By all means cherish this ardent 
interest in public worship. But do not 
indulge it to excess. Let your moderation 
be seen in giving to this its proper place and 
importance in your time and regard. It is 
not the only religious enjoyment or means of 
improvement in your power; and it may 
possibly be mere self-indulgence which carries 
one from meeting to meeting. Remember 
that no duty towards others is to be neglected 
in the search for personal improvement; this 
would be sin. And it is at times a higher 
duty to attend to your family, to be with your 
friends, to instruct your children, to consult 
the feelings and yield to the prejudices of a 
husband or wife, a parent, brother or sister, 
than it is to pursue your own single advantage, 



NECESSARY FOR THE INQUIRER. 45 

it may be your own gratification, by going out 
to social worship. And if it be your object 
to please God or discipline your own spirit, 
you will better effect that object by this 
exercise of self-denial, than by doing what 
would give uneasiness to others, and perhaps 
even alienate them from you, and render them 
hostile to religion itself. The advice of the 
Apostle to wives is in force on this point, and 
is equally applicable to the other social 
relations : ' Ye wives, be in subjection to your 
own husbands ; that if any obey not the word, 
they may, without the word, be won by the 
conversation of the wives ; while they behold 
your chaste conversation coupled with fear.' 

Be warned, therefore, against this error. 
And what are you to lose by the course which 
I recommend? Believe me, however much 
may be gained by the sympathy and excite- 
ment of a public assembly, quite as much is 
gained by the sacrifice of your inclinations 
to duty and to the feelings of others, and by 
the silent, unwitnessed exercises of retirement, 
which no one can forbid you. Look not at 
the present moment, but at the end. Your 
desire is to form a genuine, solid, thorough, 



46 THE STATE OF MtND, &C. 

permanent character of devotion. Well ; try 
to form it wholly in the excitement, and be- 
neath the external influence, of public meet- 
ings, and it will be such a character as can 
exist only in such scenes. Your piety will 
always need the presence and voice of men 
to keep it alive, and, unsustained by them, 
will sink away and die. This, at least, is the 
danger to be apprehended ; and experience 
declares that it is no slight one. But form 
your character in private, build it up by the 
action of your own mind, under the direction 
of the Bible, and by intercourse with the 
Father of spirits, — and then it will always be 
independent of other men and of outward 
circumstances. It will be self-sustained on a 
foundation which man and earth cannot shake, 
alike powerful in the solitude and in the crowd, 
and immovable in steadfastness, though all 
other men prove false, and faith have fled all 
other bosoms. It is such a piety that belongs 
to the Christian ; it is such that you are to 
seek ; and you may well be apprehensive of 
failure, if you neglect this salutary caution. 



MEANS OF RELIGIOUS IMPROVEMENT. 47 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE MEANS OF RELIGIOUS IMPROVEMENT. 

The means to be used in order to render 
permanent your religious impressions, and 
promote the growth of your character, are now 
to be considered. They may be arranged un- 
der the following heads : — Reading, Medita- 
tion, Prayer, Hearing the word preached, and 
the Lord's Supper. 

I. Reading. 

I begin with the more private means ; and I 
speak of reading first, because it is in the peru- 
sal of the Scriptures that the beginning of 
religious knowledge is to be found. It is they 
which testify of Christ, and have the words of 
eternal life. It is they which make wise unto 
salvation. And it is through a devout ac- 
quaintance with them, that the mind and 
heart grow in the knowledge and love of God, 
and that the dispositions are formed which 
prepare for heaven. Every one may read the 



48 MEANS OF RELIGIOUS IMPROVEMENT. 

Bible, and, such is its plainness and simplicity 
in all matters pertaining to life and godliness, 
that if he be able to read nothing else, he may 
yet learn all that is essential to duty and ac« 
ceptance. Hence it has happened, that many, 
to whom circumstances have interdicted all 
general acquaintance with books, have gather- 
ed, from their solitary study of the Bible alone, 
a wisdom which has expanded and elevated 
their minds, and a peace which has raised 
them above the darkness and trials of an un- 
happy worldly lot. 

There are those whose condition in life is 
such, that they have very little time or means 
to devote to books, and it were vain to recom- 
mend to them that they should seek instruc- 
tion beyond the sacred pages, and the simplest 
elementary works of devotion. While, there- 
fore, it is the undoubted duty of every one to 
make the utmost possible progress in religious 
knowledge, no one is to be condemned for that 
omission of study and ignorance of books 
which are rendered unavoidable by circum. 
stances. We must make a distinction, it has 
been truly said, between that which is the 
duty of all, and may be done by all, that is, a 



READING. 49 

careful and devout perusal of the Scriptures, 
and that which is the duty, because within the 
ability, only of a more limited number, — the 
study of other sources of knowledge and vir- 
tue. These every one must pursue in propor- 
tion to his leisure and means. 

The class of those who have the leisure and 
means is large and numerous; it is to be 
wished that they were more alive to their obli- 
gation to improve themselves accordingly. I 
know not how it happens, that serious and 
devout persons are so content to be ignorant 
on those great topics which they truly feel to 
transcend all others in importance. It certain- 
ly deserves their consideration, whether this 
indifference be either creditable or right. 
Capacity and opportunity form the measure 
of duty ; and if they have received the power 
and means of cultivating their minds and add- 
ing to their treasures of truth and thought, 
they should regard it as an intimation that this 
is required of them. They should not esteem 
it enough to be sincere and conscientious ; 
they should desire to be well-informed ; well- 
informed respecting the interpretation of the 
more difficult and curious portions of holy writ. 
5 



50 MEANS OF RELIGIOUS IMPROVEMENT. 

respecting the history and transmission of the 
records of their faith, the fortunes of the 
church in successive ages, the effects of their 
religion and of other religions on the world, 
the past and present state of religious opin- 
ions, the past and present operations of 
Christian benevolence, the means of doing 
good, and the lives, labors, and speculations of 
the eminent professors of their faith. Now, all 
this is to be known only through bocks ; and 
in order to attain it, a judicious selection of 
books, and an appropriation of certain seasons 
for reading, are primarily requisite. The bare 
importance and interest of these subjects ought 
to be a sufficient inducement to the adoption 
of this course. 

//There are many other considerations which 
render it worthy of attention. The preaching 
of divine truth becomes far more profitable to 
those who have prepared themselves for it by 
the information thus acquired. Words are 
used in the pulpit, modes of speech occur, al- 
lusions are made, and facts and reasonings re- 
ferred to, which presuppose an acquaintance 
with certain subjects, and which are entirely 
lost to those who never read. The better a 



READING. 51 

hearer is furnished with preliminary knowl- 
edge, the greater pleasure will he derive from 
the pulpit ; because the better will he under- 
stand and appreciate the sentiments expressed. 
At present, such is the uninformed character 
of a large portion of ordinary congregations, 
that a minister is compelled to pass by many 
modes of illustration, and many representa- 
tions of truth and duty, because they would 
be to a great majority unintelligible, and there- 
fore unprofitable. Instead of going on to per- 
fection in the proclamation of higher and 
wider views, he is compelled, as the Apostle 
complained in a similar case, to confine him- 
self ' to the first principles of the oracles of 
God.' Some teachers, unwilling or unable 
thus to adapt themselves to the actual stature 
of their hearers' minds, pursue their own 
modes of thought and expression, without re- 
gard to their audience ; and, while they 
gratify a few reading and thinking men, leave 
the mass of the people uninstructed and unaf- 
fected. Herein is a sad error. But if the 
preacher must adapt himself to the hearers, the 
hearers ought to prepare themselves for the 
preaching. This is to be done by greater 



52 MEANS OF RELIGIOUS IMPROVEMENT. 

familiarity with religious books. They would 
then be ready for higher and more extensive 
themes, and for a wider scope of illustration, 
while the preacher would cease to feel him- 
self fettered. At present, warmed and filled, 
as his mind must often be, by large contempla- 
tion and exalted study, he sometimes uncon- 
sciously speaks that which is an unknown 
tongue to the unlettered man, though delight- 
ful and wholesome to him whose habits of 
reading have prepared him to receive it. 

Further still. It might do for mere men of 
the world, who professedly seek only worldly 
good, and hold of little worth the goods of the 
mind, — it might do for them to neglect books 
and thinking, and spend all their precious 
leisure in idle recreations. They are living 
for the body. But it is the distinction of the 
Christian, that he lives for the soul, for his in- 
tellectual and moral nature, for that part of 
him which is noblest now, and which alone 
shall live for ever. He has passed out of 
the ahimal, into the spiritual, life. It is not for 
him to omit or neglect any suitable means of 
intellectual or moral cultivation. He is guilty 
of criminal inconsistency, he is a traitor to his 



READING. 53 

own mind, if he refuse to nourish it, syste- 
matically, with knowledge and truth. To 
keep it inactive and ignorant, is to keep it de- 
graded. Jesus lived and died for it, that it 
might attain the truth, and that the truth 
might make it free. But what is the freedom 
of the mind bound in the fetters of ignorance? 
Freedom and elevation can come to it only 
through knowledge, and one chief fountain of 
knowledge is books. These inform and excite 
' it, and furnish food for thought. Thought is 
exercise ; it is to the mind what motion is to 
the body. Without it, there is neither health 
nor strength. And when God has graciously 
ordered that your lot should be cast amid the 
abundance of books, where you need only put 
forth your hand and be supplied ; when he 
thus makes easy to you that intellectual and 
moral attainment which is the soul's dignity 
and happiness ; I see not how you can answer 
it to your conscience, if you do not sacredly 
devote to this object a certain portion of your 
leisure. 

In regard to the quantity of time to be thus 
employed, no uniform rule can be given. 
Men vary so much in occupation, opportunity, 
5* 



54 MEANS OF RELIGIOUS IMPROVEMENT. 

and leisure, that, while one may easily com* 
mand hours, another can with difficulty secure 
minutes. On this point every one must be 
left to the decision of his own conscience 
Inquire of that, impartially and seriously, and 
then determine how large a portion of time 
you can daily give to this great object. I be- 
lieve it may be laid down as certain, that most 
persons may afford to it a great deal more than 
they imagine. Some make no effort to do any 
thing, because they can effect so little that 
they account it not worth the effort. But they 
should remember, that duty does not consist in 
doing great things, but in doing what we can ; 
and that, if they would redeem from the hurry 
of business and the relaxation of sleep one 
quarter of an hour a day, it would be a more 
praiseworthy offering than the many hours 
which are given by others. Even five minutes 
a day would be worth something, would be in- 
valuable to one who was earnestly bent on 
using it. It would amount in a year to about 
thirty hours ; and who will say that it is not 
better to improve the mind for thirty hours 
than not at all? But I am persuaded that 
there is scarcely any one, however engrossed 



READING. 55 

in necessary cares, who may not find much 
more time than this — who may not find an 
hour a day. By greater care of the minutes 
which he wastes, by abridging a little from his 
meals, a little from his pleasures, and a little 
from his sleep, it would be easily accomplish- 
ed. If one be in earnest, as he should be, if 
he seek for wisdom as for gold, and for under- 
standing as for hid treasure, it will be no impos- 
sible thing to find the requisite time. Few men 
but could readily gain an hour a day, if they 
were to gain by it a dollar a day. Indeed, it is 
often seen, in actual life, that a person, to whom 
religion has become an object of deep concern, 
contrives to devote to his books more time 
than this, though before he would have 
thought it impossible. Nothing is wanting 
but the ' willing mind.' If one feel the 
necessity, every thing else will give way. 
Rather than remain ignorant and without prog- 
ress in the truth, he will cheerfully watch an 
hour later at night, and rise an hour earlier in 
the morning. The gain to the mind will 
more than balance the inconvenience to the 
body. 

You may regard it, then, as some proof of 



56 MEANS OF RELIGIOUS IMPROVEMENT. 

the sincerity and earnestness of your desire 
for improvement, if you find yourself able to 
appropriate a certain portion of time to prof- 
itable reading. • It is important that you select 
for this purpose those hours which shall be 
least liable to interruption, and that you allow 
nothing to infringe upon them. Keep this as 
holy time. Be punctual and faithful to it, as 
the banker to his hours of business. 

There are seasons in every one's vocation, 
at which his business is less pressing than at 
others ; and there are also seasons of leisure, 
which he feels at liberty to take for recreation 
and amusement. As you will have lost all 
taste for frivolous amusement and unprofitable 
pleasures, you will be able to devote all such 
seasons to the improvement of your mind ; 
and, instead of the theatre and the ball-room, 
from which you would have returned fatigued 
in body and distracted in mind, and to some 
extent unfitted for duty, you will enjoy the 
converse of the great minds which have blessed 
the world, and, after filling your soul with their 
thoughts, will go back to your ordinary duty 
with a spirit refreshed and invigorated, and a 
body unwearied. During the season of long 



READING, 57 

evenings, especially, when so many are hurry- 
ing from diversion to diversion, as if this long 
^isure were provided them only that they may 
contrive how ingeniously they can throw it 
away, — you will perceive that you have a most 
favorable opportunity for pursuing extensive re- 
searches, and making large acquisitions of 
knowledge. Evening after evening, in your 
own quiet retirement, you will sit down to this 
instructive application. By this diligence what 
progress may you make ! what volumes may 
you master ! to what extent may you penetrate 
the secrets of science, acquire a knowledge 
of history and of letters, and become enriched 
with those great and various treasures of in- 
tellect, which are subservient to the growth of 
the mind and the glory of God ! You will 
thus be using time for the purpose for which 
it was given, — the ripening and perfecting of 
your immortal mind ; and, at all intervals of 
release from duty to others, will make it your 
happiness to be thus performing a great duty 
to yourself. 

In your selection of books, the Bible will, 
of course, hold the first place. This is to be 
read daily, and to be your favorite book. Re- 

F 



58 MEANS OF RELIGIOUS IMPROVEMENT. 

member, however, that it may be perused in 
such a manner, that it were better never to have 
opened it. If studied inattentively, for form's 
sake, or only for the purpose of gathering 
arguments to support your opinions, it is read 
irreligiously, and therefore unprofitably. You 
must habitually regard it as uttering instruc- 
tions with a voice of authority, of which you 
are earnestly to seek the true meaning, and 
then submissively to obey them. You must 
never forget that your hopes of right instruc- 
tion are suspended on the simplicity and fidel- 
ity with which you receive those holy words ; 
and as they were written expressly to make 
you wise unto salvation, no inferior purpose 
must distract your attention from this. 

You will therefore always have in view two 
objects — to understand the book, and to apply 
it to your own heart and character. 

The study of the Bible, for the purpose of 
understanding it, is an arduous labor. Dr. 
Johnson said of the New Testament, " It is 
the most difficult book in the world, for which 
the labor of a life is required." No book re- 
quires greater and more various aid. Its 
thorough interpretation is a science by itself j 



READING. 59 

and you must ask of those, in whose judgment 
you confide, to point out the requisite helps for 
this interesting investigation ; to enable you to 
reach the pure text, and arrive at the meaning 
of every passage as it lay in the mind of the 
writer. Recollect that a passage standing by 
itself may bear a very good meaning, which yet 
was not the meaning designed ; and make it a 
sacred rule, not to receive or quote it in any 
other sense than that which belongs to it in its 
original place. The neglect of this rule has 
occasioned much misinterpretation and misap- 
plication of scripture ; and some passages 
have come to be familiarly understood and 
cited in senses altogether foreign from their 
proper import. This is a perversion ; and it is 
an immense evil to have wrong ideas thus 
fastened upon the language of the sacred 
writers. 

And be not afraid of examining the text 
scrupulously, and employing the utmost ener- 
gy of your mind in discovering and determin- 
ing its true sense. It is a duty to do this. 
You can decide between opposing and possi- 
ble interpretations only by applying your own 
mind to judge between them ; and the more 



60 MEANS OF RELIGIOUS IMPROVEMENT. 

keenly, impartially, and fearlessly you proceed, 
the greater the probability that your decision 
will be correct. On this point some persona 
greatly err. They seize on the first meaning 
which presents itself to their minds, or has 
been presented by another, and resolutely 
abide by it ; they refuse to investigate further, 
lest they should be guilty of irreverently trying 
the divine word by their own fallible reason. 
Indulge no such weakness as this. Never, in- 
deed, be guilty for a moment of the insane folly 
and sin of disputing the authority of revela- 
tion, or setting up your reason as a superior 
light and safer guide. But in deciding upon 
the meaning of scripture, you cannot use your 
intellectual powers too much or too acutely. 
Use them constantly, coolly, impartially, with 
the best aid you can obtain from human 
authors, and then you may rest satisfied that 
you have done your duty, — have done all 
which you could do toward learning the truth ; 
and if you have accompanied it with prayer 
for a blessing from the Source of truth and 
wisdom, you cannot have failed, in any 
essential point, to ascertain the will of 
God. 



READING. 61 

But there is another object, — the applica- 
tion of scripture to the forming of the heart 
and character. This is a higher object than 
the other, and may be effected in cases where 
very little of rigid scrutiny can be made into 
the dark places of the divine word. Blessed 
be God, it is not necessary, in order to salva- 
tion, that one should comprehend all the 
things hard to be understood, or be able to fol- 
low out the train of reasoning in every Epistle, 
and restore the text in every corruption. Do 
all this as much as you can. But when you 
read, as it were for your life ; when you take 
the Bible to your closet, to be the help and 
the solitary witness of your prayers; when 
you take it up as a lamp which you are to 
hold to your heart, for the purpose of search- 
ing into its true state, that you may purify 
and perfect it ; — then put from your mind all 
thoughts of differing interpretations and vari- 
ous readings, and the perplexities of criticism 
and translation. You have only to do with 
what is spiritual and practical. You are no 
more a scholar, seeking for intellectual 
guidance, but a sinful and accountable crea- 
ture, asking for help in duty, and deliverance 
6 



62 MEANS OF RELIGIOUS IMPROVEMENT. 

from an evil world and an evil heart. Read, 
therefore, as if on your knees. Make your 
heart feel and respond to every sentiment. 
Apply to yourself with rigor every precept 
and warning ; and according to the character 
of the passage, let your mind glow with fervor, 
and be uplifted in holy adoration and devout 
gratitude, or be thrilled and humbled by the 
representations of infinite purity and justice, 
or melted and borne away by the tones of 
tender love and long-suffering grace. Suffer 
yourself to read nothing coldly, when you 
read for spiritual improvement. You might 
as lawfully pray coldly. Therefore let your 
reading be like your prayers, — done with all 
your heart. And be sensible that it is better 
to go over one short passage many times, till 
you fully grasp its sentiment, and grow warm 
with it, than to run over hastily and unfeel- 
ingly many chapters. 

You are not to suppose, from what has been 
said, that you are altogether to separate these 
two modes of reading the Scriptures. On the 
contrary, it will greatly aid you in unravelling 
their true meaning, to carry to their interpre- 
tation a devout mind, wakeful to the impres- 



READING. 63 

sion of their moral beauty, and in sympathy 
with their divine origin ; since nothing is truer 
than this, — that a study is rendered easy by 
the interest of the affections in it, and that 
difficulties disappear before the excitement of 
feeling. And, on the other hand, when you 
are reading expressly for improvement and de- 
votion, you will recur, without effort, and con- 
sequently without interruption, to the results 
of your cooler inquiry, and spontaneously 
make use of the interpretations which your 
critical scrutiny has proved to be just 

The cautions thus briefly sketched are im- 
portant for two reasons ; one, that there is a 
tendency in him who has become interested in 
the critical examination of the sacred writings, 
to continue to read them critically and with a 
principal regard to their elucidation, when he 
ought to be imbibing their spirit; and the other, 
that the perception of this tendency has been 
an apology to many for not engaging in such 
inquiries at all. They esteem it better to go on 
with their crude, unconnected, and undigested 
knowledge, which in many cases is only igno- 
rance (for where they have not inquired, it is 
impossible they should know), than to check the 



64 MEANS OF RELIGIOUS IMPROVEMENT. 

fervor of their religious feelings, as they fancy 
must inevitably be done, by accurate study. 
But this is a mekncholy error. It reminds 
one of the old pretence that ignorance is the 
mother of devotion. How can it be rationally 
supposed, that a careful inquiry concerning the 
history, the text, and the signification of the 
Bible, should necessarily alienate the mind 
from the true spirit of the Bible ! I say 
necessarily, because the tendency alluded to 
undoubtedly exists ; and, however it may be 
accounted for, it evidently needs to be cau- 
tiously guarded against. This may be done. 
Do it, then, as you value the warmth and fervor 
of your soul. Do it, always and perse ver- 
ingly, by daily reading in that frame of spirit* 
ual self-application which I have recommenoV 
ed. Thus you will avoid the danger; and 
while you arrive at enlarged views of the na- 
ture, contents, history and purposes of these 
sacred records, you will retain and increase 
the susceptibility of your heart to all their 
representations of duty and heaven. 

In regard to the choice of other books, it 
would take up too much room to enter into all 
the many considerations which might be 



READING. 65 

started. Let it be sufficient to say in general, 
that, if you would form a religious character, 
you are always to have in view the two objects 
already named, — religious knowledge and 
moral improvement. Your books, therefore, 
will belong to one or the other of these two 
departments; and it would be well to have 
one of each kind always lying by you in the 
course of being read. That is, be at all times 
engaged with two books ; one of a moral and 
devotional character, to keep your frame of 
mind right, and your feelings in harmony with 
eternal truth ; the other, of an instructive 
character, to enlarge your knowledge, and ex- 
tend your ideas concerning God, and man, 
and truth. Then you will never be at a loss 
for occupation. You will not fritter away 
precious hours in ' wondering what you had 
better do.' 

To the better accomplishment of this pur- 
pose, it will be wen to obtain of your minister, 
or some competent friend, a list of selected 
books, in the order in which they should be 
read. I earnestly recommend this. Many 
persons read at random, without selection, 
whatever they may accidentally meet with. 
6* G 



66 MEANS OF RELIGIOUS IMPROVEMENT, 

They make no inquiry whether a book be 
good or bad, worth perusal or not ; but, be- 
cause it lies in their way, or has been read by 
some friend, they read it. How many misera- 
ble volumes of trash are thus devoured ! and 
that, too, by persons who would be alarmed at 
the suspicion that they are prodigally throwing 
away their time. But they do not pursue the 
same random course in other matters. They 
do not choose their food or clothing of the 
first thing which accidentally presents itself 
They take pains, they spend time, they in- 
quire, compare, judge and select only what 
they deliberately perceive to be best. And 
when we treat the body thus, shall we have 
no care for the mind ? Shall we leave it to be 
fed by any food which chance may bring 
it, and thus expose it to the risk of pernicious 
nourishment, to the hazard of beinnr made 
feeble, sickly, and corrupt? I adjure you, fill 
not into this too common thoughtlessness. 
Do not take it for granted, that, because it is 
a printed book, therefore it must be worth 
reading. Get advice upon the subject, and 
reaa systematically ; reflecting, that your ob- 
ject is not amusement, but improvement, — im- 



READING. 67 

provement of your religious nature ; and that 
you have no more right to run the hazard of 
poisoning it through a negligent selection of 
its nutriment, than to destroy your body by 
similar means. The religious culture of your 
mind is a most responsible charge ; it is to be 
effected, in no small degree, by the exercise 
and guidance it shall receive from books ; and 
how will you lift up your head, when the 
Judge shall inquire concerning your manner 
of preparing it for his kingdom, if you have 
provided for its immortal appetite nothing but 
anarranged and unselected trash, when stores 
of the choicest kind were profusely spread 
before you? 

It does not fall within my plan to pursue 
this subject further, or to treat the many ques- 
tions which may arise on the choice of books, 
and habits of reading, in general. It may be 
said in few words, that no work of truth and 
science, or of elegance and taste, which does 
not tend to corrupt the morals or create a dis- 
relish for serious thought, need be prohibited 
to a religious man. Within the limits of this 
restriction he may freely range. Let him only 
remember, that even the employment of read- 



68 MEANS OF RELIGIOUS IMPROVEMENT. 

ing may become mere idleness and waste fuU 
ness ; and that a man may decide respecting 
his actual principles and character by the 
character of the books to which he is most 
attached. He must therefore watch and 
guard his taste. Then he may find it in his 
power to cause every hour thus spent to 
minister to the growth of his best attain 
ments. 

II. Meditation. 

This is a great and essential means of im- 
provement. It is essential to self-examination 
and self-knowledge, without which the hope 
of progress and of virtue is vain. No one 
can know his own character, or be aware of 
the dispositions, feelings and motives by 
which he is actuated, except by means of deep 
and searching reflection. In the crowd of 
business and the hurry of the world, we are 
apt to rush on without weighing, as we should, 
the considerations which urge us; we are 
liable to neglect that close inspection of our- 
selves, and that careful reference of our con* 
duct to the unerring standard of right, which 
are requisite both to our knowing where we 



MEDITATION. ttt) 

are, and to our keeping in the right way. It 
is necessary that we sometimes pause and look 
around us, and consider our ways; that we 
take observation of the course we are running, 
and the various influences to which we are 
subjected, and be sure that we are not driven 
or drifted from the direction in which we 
ought to be proceeding. Without this there 
is no safety. 

Meditation, too, is necessary in order to the 
digesting of religious truth, making familiar 
what we have learned, and incorporating it 
with our own minds. We cannot even retain 
it in our memories, much less can we be fully 
sensible of its power and worth, except 
through the habit of reflecting upon it. We 
cannot have it ready at command, so as to de- 
fend it when assailed, or state it when in- 
quired after, or apply it in the emergencies of 
life, unless it be familiar to us by habitual 
meditation ; so that even reading loses its 
value if unaccompanied by reflection. The 
obligations and motives of duty, the promises, 
hopes and prospects of the Christian, the 
great interests and permanent realities by 
which he is to be actuated, are not visibly and 



70 MEANS OF RELIGIOUS IMPROVEMENT. 

tangibly present to him, like the scenes of his 
passing life ; and they must be made spiritual- 
ly present by deliberate meditation, if he 
would be guided and swayed by them. In- 
deed, without this, he must be without consid- 
eration or devotion, ignorant of the actual state 
of his character, and in constant danger of 
falling a sacrifice to the unfriendly influences 
of the world. 

In attempting, therefore, the acquisition 
of a religious character, it is important that 
you maintain an habitual thoughtfulness of 
mind. It has been said, and with perfect 
truth, that no man pursues any great interest 
of any kind, in which important consequences 
are at stake, without a profound and settled 
seriousness of mind ; and that a man of really 
frivolous disposition never accomplishes any 
thing valuable. How especially true must 
this be, in regard to the great interests of 
religion and eternity! How can you hope to 
make progress in that perplexing and difficult 
work, the establishment of a religious charac- 
ter, the attainment of the great Christian 
accomplishments, without a fixed and habitual 
thoughtfulness? — a thoughtfulness which never 



MEDITATION. 71 

forgets the vastness and responsibility of 
the work assigned to man, nor loses the 
consciousness of a relation to more glorious 
beings than are found upon the earth. This 
must be your habit ; — something more than an 
occasional musing and reverie, at set times, 
when you shall force yourself to the task. It 
must be the uniform condition of your mind ; 
as much so as solicitude to the merchant, 
who has great treasures exposed to the 
uncertainties of the ocean and the foe ; — a 
solicitude, in your case not gloomy, or unsocial, 
or morose, but thoughtful ; so that nothing 
shall be done inconsiderately, or without 
adverting to the bearing it may have on your 
character and final prospects. 

Then, besides this general state of mind, 
there must be, as I have said, allotted periods 
of express meditation. As the precept re- 
specting devotion is, ' Pray without ceasing,' 
and yet set times of prayer are necessary ; so 
also, while we say, * Be always thoughtful/ we 
must add, that particular seasons are necessary 
on purpose for meditation. You must set 
apart certain times for reflection, when you 
6hall deliberately sit down and survey with 



72 MEANS OP RELIGIOUS IMPROVEMENT. 

keen scrutiny yourself, your condition, your 
past life, and the prospect before you ; inquire 
into tha state of your religious knowledge and 
personal attainments ; and strengthen your 
sense of responsibility and purposes of duty, 
by dwelling on the attributes and government 
of God, the ways of his providence, the rev- 
elations of his word, the requisitions of his 
will, the glory of his kingdom, and all the 
affecting truths and promises which the gos- 
pel displays. These are to be subjects of 
distinct and profound consideration, till your 
mind becomes imbued with them, and until, 
filled and inspired by the spiritual contem- 
plation, you are in a manner 'changed into 
the same image as by the spirit of the Lord.' 
The proper season for this is the season of 
your daily devotion ; when, having shut out 
the world, and sought the nearer presence of 
God, your mind is prepared to work fervently. 
Then, contemplation, aided by prayer, ascends 
to heights which it could never reach alone ; 
and sometimes, whether in the body or out of 
the body it can hardly tell, soars, as it were 
to the third heaven, and enjoys a revelation 
to which, at other hours, it is a stranger. 



MEDITATION. 73 

This, however, is an excitement of mind 
which is rarely to be expected. Those sea- 
sons are * few as angel's visits/ which lift the 
spirit to any thing like ecstasy. They are 
glimpses of heaven, which the soul, in its pres- 
ent tabernacle, can seldom catch, only fre- 
quently enough to afford a brief foretaste of 
that bliss to which it shall hereafter arrive. 
Its ordinary musings are less ethereal ; happy, 
undoubtedly, though oftentimes clouded by 
feelings of sadness and doubt, and by a sense 
of unworthiness and sin. But however mixed 
they may be, they are always salutary. If sad 
and disheartening, they lead to more vigilant 
self-examination, that we may discover their 
cause, and thus rekindle the watchlight that is 
so essential to right progress. If serene and 
ioyous, they are a present earnest of the peace 
which is assured to the righteous, and the joy 
heart which is one of the genuine fruits of 
ne spirit. Be not, therefore, troubled or cast 
down (indeed never be cast down, so long as 
you can say to your soul, Trust in God) ; be 
not, I say, disquieted or cast down, because of 
the inequalities of feeling with which you 
enter and leave your closet, and the changes 



74 MEANS OF RELIGIOUS IMPROVEMENT. 

from brightness to gloom, from clearness to 
obscurity, which often pass over your mind. 
This, alas ! is the inheritance of our frail na 
ture. An equal vigor of thought, clearness 
of apprehension, force of imagination, fervor of 
devotion, always perceiving, feeling, adoring, 
with the same vividness and satisfaction, 
are to be our portion in the world of spirits. 
Here we see all things, 'as in a glass, 
darkly' ; there we shall see ' face to face.* 
Here the truths we rejoice in are too often 
like the images of absent friends, which we 
strive in vain to bring brightly before the eye 
of our minds ; they are shadowy, indistinct, 
and fleeting. But there they will be like our 
friends themselves, always present in their 
own full form and beauty, to dwell in the 
mind unfadingly, and constitute its bliss. 
Be satisfied, then, if you sometimes arrive, in 
your meditations, at that glow of elevated 
enjoyment which you desire. What you 
are rather to seek for, is, a calm and com- 
posed state of the affections, an equanimity 
of spirit, a serenity of temper ; — like the 
quiet which an affectionate child experiences 
in the circle of its parents and brothers, 



MEDITATION. 75 

where it is net excited to ecstasy by the 
thought of its father's goodness, but lives 
beneath it in a state of equal and affection- 
ate trust. Like this should be the habitual 
experience of the Christian ; and if it be 
thus with you, let not occasional dullness or 
darkness, coming over your spirit in its reli- 
gious hours, dishearten or distress you. 

This I say, because many persons of tru- 
ly devout habits have unquestionably suf- 
fered much from this cause. In the natural 
fluctuations of the animal spirits, or the 
nervous system, or the bodily health, they 
sometimes find themselves cold at heart, 
and seemingly insensible to religious con- 
siderations. It seems to them that their 
hearts have waxed gross, that their eyes are 
closed, and their ears become dull of hear- 
ing. In vain do they read and think ; they 
cannot arouse themselves to any thing like 
a ' realizing sense ' of these great objects ; 
but regard with a stupid unconcern what at 
other times has been the source of their 
chief enjoyment. But let the humble and 
timid believer be of good cheer. This ia 
not always a sign of guilt, or of desertion 



76 MEANS OF RELIGIOUS IMPROVEMENT. 

by God. It may be traced to the original 
and unavoidable imperfection of human na- 
ture ; it is to be lamented as such, but not 
to be repented of as sin ; and one may not 
expect to be relieved from it, till the soul 
is freed from the body. Let him watch the 
course of his mind, and he will find the 
same inequality of feeling to exist upon 
other subjects. He does not at all times 
take an equal interest in his ordinary con- 
cerns, nor does he at all times feel the high- 
est warmth of affection toward his parent, 
friend, or child. Let him observe others, and 
he will discover the same variations in them. 
They will confess it to be so. The oldest 
and most established Christians will de- 
scribe themselves to have passed their whole 
pilgrimage in this state of fluctuation. Read 
the private journals of distinguished believ- 
ers, and you find in them frequent com- 
plaints of lukewarmness, indifference, and 
deadness of heart. They mourn over it, they 
bewail it, they strive against it, and yet it 
adheres to them as long as they live. It is 
not, therefore, your peculiar sin, but a com- 
mon infirmity. Regard it in this light , and 



MEDITATION. 77 

do not let it destroy your peace of mind, or 
lead you to overlook the rational evidence 
that your heart is right with God. 

But also, on the other hand, — for the 
Christian's path is hedged in with dangers 
on every side, and in trying to escape from 
one it is easy to rush into another, — take 
heed that you do not unwarrantably apply 
this consolation and make this excuse to 
yourself in cases in which you really deserve 
blame. Do not let this apology, which is 
designed only for the comfort of the hum- 
ble and watchful, be used by you as a cover 
for negligence and sinful self-confidence. 
Remember that your unsatisfactory state of 
religious sensibility may be possibly your 
fault ; and yon are not to presume that it is 
otherwise, until you have faithfully searched 
and tried. Have you not, for a time, been 
unreasonably devoted to amusement, or en- 
grossed by unnecessary cares, so as to have 
neglected the watching of your heart ? Have 
you not for a season been thoughtless, light- 
minded, frivolous, and careless of that de- 
vout reference to God, by which you should 
always be actuated ? Have you not engaged 
7* 



78 MEANS OF RELIGIOUS IMPROVEMENT. 

in some questionable undertaking, or allow 
ed yourself in sloth or self-indulgence, or 
cherished ill feelings toward others, or per- 
mitted your temper to be kept irritated by 
some unimportant vexations, or let your imagi- 
nation run loose among forbidden desires ? 
Ask yourself such questions ; and perhaps 
in the nature of your recent occupations 
you may detect the cause of your present 
listlessness. If so, change the general turn 
of your life. In the words of Cowper's 
hymn, it is only * A closer walk with God/ 
which can bring back i the blessedness you 
once enjoyed.' Now, your heart is desolate 
and unsatisfied ; you find in it ' an aching 
void, which God alone can fill ;' and it is 
only by renewing your acquaintance with 
him, that you can renew your peace. 

But, after all, remember that you are to 
judge of the real worth of these seasons, not 
by your enjoyment of them as they pass, 
not by the luxury or rapture of your contem- 
plation, but by their effect upon your char- 
acter and principles, by the religious power 
you gain from them toward meeting the du- 
ties and Bufferings, the joys and sorrows, 



MEDITATION. 79 

the temptations, trials and conflicts of ac- 
tual life. Meditation is a means of reli* 
gion; not to be rested in as a final good, 
nor allowed to satisfy us, except so far as it 
imparts to the character a permanent im- 
press of seriousness and duty, and strength- 
ens the principles of faith and self-govern- 
ment. If it add daily vigor to your resolu- 
tions, and secure order to your thoughts, se- 
renity to your temper, and uprightness to your 
life, then it has fulfilled its legitimate pur- 
pose. If, on the other hand, it end in the 
reverie of the hour, then, however fervent 
and exalted, it is, comparatively speaking, 
worthless to yourself and unacceptable to 
God. Its permanent influence on the char- 
acter is the true test of its value. 

It is easy to see, therefore, that there are 
three purposes which you have in view ; the 
cultivation of a religious spirit, the scrutiny 
of your life and character, the renewing of 
your good purposes. 

By the first of these, you are to insure the 
predominance of a spiritual frame of mind, 
a perpetual, paramount interest in divine 
truth, and its incorporation with the frame 



80 MEANS OF RELIGIOUS IMPROVEMENT. 

and constitution of your soul ; so that you 
shall be continually enlarging your apprehen- 
sions concerning God, his providence and 
his purposes, and shall at the same time make 
them part of the very substance of your intel- 
lectual constitution, the pervading and actu- 
ating motives of all your life. 

By this means religion becomes to the 
Christian what the spirit of his profession is to 
the soldier, — the one present thought, motive, 
and impulse, absorbing all others, and urging 
him to his one great object by its mastery over 
all other thoughts, principles, and affections. 
The other two purposes of meditation which 
I mentioned, may be described as the survey- 
ing and burnishing of the warrior's arms, in 
preparation for the summons to actual combat ; 
or as the act of the mariner in mid ocean, who 
every day lifts his instruments to the light of 
heaven, and consults his charts and his books, 
that he may learn where he is, and what has 
been his progress, and whether any change 
must be made in his course in order to his 
reaching the intended haven. The warrior who 
should allow his arms to rust for want of a 
little daily care, and the mariuer who should 



MEDITATION. 81 

be shipwrecked from neglect of taking sea- 
sonable observations, are emblems of the folly 
of the man who presses on through life, with- 
out ever pausing to scrutinize the principles 
on which he acts, and rectify the errors he has 
committed. 

This self-examination must be universal; 
embracing alike the conduct of your ex- 
ternal life and the habitual tenor of your mind. 
You must survey the train of your thoughts, 
the temper you have sustained, your deport- 
ment toward others, your conversation, your 
employment, the use of your time and of your 
wealth; you must consider by what sort of 
motives you are prevailingly guided, what is 
the probable effect of your example, and 
whether you are doing all the good which 
might be reasonably expected of you ; you 
must compare yourself with the example of 
Jesus Christ, and measure your life by the 
laws of holy living prescribed in his gospel. 
And in order that these and other topics may 
all have their place in the survey, it may not 
be amiss to keep them by you on a written list, 
Cotton Mather adopted and recommended the 
practice of assigning to such inquiries each its 

H 



82 MEANS OF RELIGIOUS IMPROVEMENT. 

particular day of the week ; so that every day 
might have its own topic of reflection, and 
every topic its due share of attention. Others 
may find this a useful suggestion. 

A renewal of your resolutions i& to follow 
this inquiry. Knowing where you are and what 
you need, you are to arrange your purposes ac- 
cordingly. It is a sad error of some to fancy 
that seeing and acknowledging their faults is all 
which is required of them. They sit down and 
bewail them, and in weeping and sorrow waste 
that energy of mind which should have been 
exerted in amendment. But it is surely far bet- 
ter, with manly readiness, to rise and act with- 
out a tear, than to shed torrents of bitter water, 
and still go on as before. Regret and remorse 
naturally express themselves in weeping ; but 
repentance shows itself in action. It may be- 
gin in sorrow, but it ends in reformation. And 
you have little reason to be satisfied with your 
reflections and your penitence, if they do not 
issue in prompt and resolute action. 

III. Prayer. 

As there is no duty more frequently en- 
joined in the New Testament by our Saviour 



PRAYER. 83 

and the Apostles, so there is none which is a 
more indispensable and efficacious means of 
religious improvement, than Prayer; for 
which reasons it demands particular atten- 
tion. 

The practice of devotion is a sign of spir- 
itual life, and a means of preserving it. No 
one prays heartily without some deep reli- 
gious sentiment to actuate him. This sen- 
timent may be but occasionally felt ; it may 
be transient in duration ; but the exerc;~l of it 
in acts of devotion tends to render it habitual 
and permanent, and its frequent exercise 
causes the mind at length to exist always in a 
devout posture. He who truly prays, feels, 
during the act, a sense of God's presence, 
authority, and love ; of his own obligations 
and un worthiness ; of his need of being better. 
He feels grateful, humble, resigned, anxious 
for improvement. He who prays often, often 
has these feelings, and by frequent repetition 
they become customary and constant. And 
thus prayer operates as an active, steady, pow- 
erful means of Christian progress. 

Indeed nothing effectual is to be done with- 
out it That it is a chief duty, even natural 



84 MEANS OF RELIGIOUS IMPROVEMENT. 

reason would persuade us. That it is a con- 
dition on which divine blessings are bestowed / 
Christianity assures us. That it is a high grati- 
fication and enjoyment, every one knows who 
has rightly engaged in it. And that it is of 
all means of moral restraint and spiritual ad- 
vancement the most effective, no one can 
doubt, who understands how powerfully it stirs 
and agitates the strongest and most active 
principles of man, and how complete is the 
dominion which those principles have over his 
character and conduct. All this is clear and 
sufficient, without adding the assurance of the 
Saviour, that it is effectual to draw down spir- 
itual aid from heaven. Add this, and the 
subject is complete. It is, both naturally and 
by appointment, a chief duty of man ; from 
the nature of the soul and the intercourse it 
opens with God, it is the first enjoyment; 
and through its own intrinsic power and the 
promise of Jesus, it is the most effectual in- 
strument of moral and spiritual culture. 

Perhaps you have been accustomed to the 
performance of this duty from your childhood 
You were early taught to repeat your prayers, 
morning and evening. Pains were taken to 



PRAYER. 85 

make you understand the nature of the duty, 
and to give you right impressions in perform- 
ing it. Perhaps you have retained these im- 
pressions, and have continued to this time the 
practice of sincere devotion. On the other 
hand, you may have lost those impressions, 
and become neglectful of the duty. Or per- 
haps you are so unhappy as never to have re- 
ceived instruction on this head. You have 
passed through childhood without the practice, 
and without the sentiment which should in- 
spire it ; and now, when awakened to a sense 
of your responsibility, you find yourself a 
stranger to the mercy-seat. But, however the 
case may be, the sense of your religious wants 
now urges you to devotion ; and you are anx- 
ious to make that acquaintance with God, 
which alone can secure you peace. How to 
perform the duty, how to gain the satisfac- 
tion, how to reap the advantage, are points 
upon which you are anxious to obtain direc- 
tion. 

First of all, let me urge upon you the impor- 
tance of a plan and of customary seasons for 
your devotions. Have your settled appoint- 
ments of time and place, and let nothing in- 
8 



86 MEANS OF RELIGIOUS IMPROVEMENT. 

terfere with them. Many would persuade you 
that this is too formal ; that you should be left 
more at liberty ; that, as you are to pray 
always, it is quite needless to assign any 
special season for the duty. And one may 
conceive of a person having arrived at so high 
a measure of spiritual attainment, that his 
thoughts should be a perpetual worship, and 
retirement to his closet would bring his mind 
no nearer to God. But such is at best an 
infrequent case ; at any rate it is not yours, — 
you are a beginner ; it never can be yours, 
except you use the requisite means of arriving 
at it ; and certainly among the surest means 
is the custom of setting apart stated seasons 
for devotion. So that the very reason assign- 
ed for neglecting, becomes a strong reason for 
observing them. You must feed the soul as 
you do the body, furnishing it with suitable 
nourishment at suitable intervals. You must 
keep its armor bright and serviceable, as does 
the soldier in human warfare, who examines 
and restores it at a certain hour daily. If it 
were left to be done at any convenient season 
a thousand trifling engagements might cause 
the work to be deferred again and again, till 



PRAYER. 87 

irretrievable injury should accrue. You have 
too many other engagements and enticements 
daily and hourly occurring, to make it safe for 
you to leave this to accidental convenience or 
inclination. In order to secure its perform- 
ance, you must put it on the list of your daily 
indispensable engagements ; and, as it is part 
of your routine at certain hours to breakfast 
and dine, and at certain hours to attend to the 
concerns of your household and profession, so 
also must it be, to retire at certain hours for 
religious worship. The wisdom and experi- 
ence of all the religious world insist on this ; 
and it would not be necessary to state it so ur- 
gently, if it did not seem to be a notion grow- 
ing into favor with some, that, as the spirit, 
and not the form, is the essential thing, it is 
better not to be burdened with methods and 
rules, but simply to pray always; — which, 
there is reason to fear, would in practice be 
found a precept to pray never. 

Assign to yourself therefore some conve- 
nient hour, when you shall be secure from 
interruption, and not hurried by the call of 
other business. If you are much engaged 
in active affairs, you may perhaps be unable 



88 MEANS OF RELIGIOUS IMPROVEMENT. 

to secure this, unless you rise for the purpose 
in the morning, and sit up for it at night. 
This, then, you must do. Deprive yourself of 
a few moments' sleep, morning and evening. 
And I may ask here, whether the multitude 
of persons who excuse their inattention to 
religious exercises by their want of time, do 
not thereby expose themselves to a suspicion 
of insincerity? For if they were truly in 
earnest, it would be a very little thing to retire 
to their chambers fifteen minutes earlier, 
and to rise from their beds fifteen minutes 
sooner. If they were aware of the magnitude 
of the gain, the sacrifice would seem insignifi- 
cant. Nay, they might even perform the duty 
upon their beds ; there would be no want of 
time then. And some, who, from the misfor- 
tune of poverty, have no place to which they 
can retire, being compelled to live at every 
moment in the company of others, should 
learn to feel that the bed is their closet ; that, 
when lying there, they can 'pray to the 
Father who seeth in secret;' and that they 
need make no complaint of want of opportuni- 
ty, so long as they may follow the Psalmist, 



PRAYER. 89 

who said, ' I remember thee on my bed, 
and meclitate on thee in the night-watches.' 

Having, then, your stated times, if you 
would make them in the highest measure prof- 
, itable, observe the following ru ] es. First of 
all, when the hour has arrived, seek to excite in 
your mind a sense of the divine presence, and 
of the greatness of the act in which you are 
engaging. Summon up the whole energy of 
your mind. Put all your powers upon the 
stretch. Do not allow yourself to utter a 
word, to use an expression, thoughtlessly, nor 
without setting before yourself, in a distinct 
form, its full meaning. Remember the words 
of Ecclesiasticus : * When you glorify the 
Lord, exalt him as much as you can ; for even 
yet will he far exceed : and when you exalt 
him, put forth all your strength, and be not 
weary ; for you can never go far enough.' 
Pour your whole soul, the utmost intensity of 
your feelings, into your words. One sentence 
uttered thus is better than the cold repetition 
of an entire liturgy For this reason, let your 
prayer be preceded by meditation. In this 
way make an earnest effort after a devout 
temper. While you thus muse, the fire of 
8* i 



90 MEANS OF RELIGIOUS IMPROVEMENT. 

your devotion will kindle, and then you may 
* speak with your tongue ; ' . then you may 
breathe out the adoring sentiments of praise 
and thanksgiving, the holy aspirations after 
excellence and grace, the humble confessions 
of your contrite spirit, the glowing emotions 
of Christian faith. As you proceed, you will 
probably find yourself increasing in warmth 
and energy ; especially if you give way to the 
impulse of your feelings, and do not check 
them by watching them too closely. To do 
this chills the current of devotion, and changes 
your prayer from the simple expression of 
desire and affection, into an exercise of mental 
philosophy. Wherefore, having warmed your 
mind, give it free way, and let its religious 
ardor flow on. But if, as will often be the 
case, you find your thoughts wander and your 
feelings cool, then pause, and by silent 
thought bring back the mind to its duty ; and 
thus intermix meditation with prayer, in such 
manner that you shall never fall into the 
mechanical, unmeaning repetition of mere 
words. 

As your object is not to get through with a 
certain task, but to pray devoutly, you will 



PRAYER. 91 

find it well to vary your method according to 
circumstances, and not always adhere to the 
same mode. I have sometimes suspected, 
that one cause of the little efficacy of public 
worship may be the invariable method of con- 
ducting it; whereby it is rendered formal, 
monotonous, and deficient in excitement. 
But however this may be, it is quite certain 
that a simi.ar unvaried routine would be 
extremely injudicious in private devotion. In 
this respect, a very considerable latitude is 
desirable. As you are not to consult the 
wants or the convenience of others, but your 
own duty alone, you may have a single regard 
to what shaUsuit the immediate temper and 
exigencies of your own mind, without being 
bound by any prescribed rule as to subject^ 
language, or posture. — You will always hav© 
by you the Bible to quicken and guide yoiL 
But sometimes the first verse you read may 
lead you to feelings, thoughts, and prayers, 
which shall so occupy your soul that you will 
read no more. And it is better to read but 
one verse, which thus influences your whole 
spiritual nature, than to read chapters in the 
unheedful way that is too often practised. At 



92 MEANS OF RETJGICHJS IMPROVEMENT. 

another time, however, the reading of the 
Scriptures may be your principal occupation, 
and your less excited mind may not flow 
beyond a short ejaculation at the close of each 
verse. Sometimes you may find it well to 
assist yourself by a printed or written form; 
always, however, taking care to leave it, when 
any sentiment or feeling arises within you 
which is not there expressed. The main 
advantage of a form in private is, to suggest 
thoughts, and stimulate the mind ; as soon as 
it has done this, we should lay it down, and go 
on of ourselves. Then, presently, if we find 
it necessary, we may again recur to the form, 
and make the whole exercise, if we please, an 
alternate use of the form, and of our own 
language. In all this we must be guided by 
the occasion. 

Similar varieties may be allowed in regard 
to the subjects of our devotions. There are 
some great and leading topics of adoration 
and supplication, which may at no time be 
forgotten or omitted. But it cannot be neces- 
sary in every prayer to go over the whole field 
of devotional sentiment. It is best that we 
confine ourselves principally to those which 



PRAYER. 93 

are most immediately interesting at the time, 
and seek to render our present circumstances, 
fortunes, failings, and prospects, the nourish- 
ment of our devotion. The temptations of our 
peculiar lot, our recent trials of temper, forti- 
tude, and faith, the dealings of Providence with 
our family and friends, the exposure, wants, 
and improvement of those most dear to us, — 
these, as they are at other moments of the 
greatest concern to us, should be the objects 
upon which we should, first of all, seek the 
blessing of God. This it is to connect every 
thing with religion ; in this way we shall avoid 
the error, into which some have fallen, of mak- 
ing religion £ wholly independent existence, 
with no reference to the ordinary duties of ac- 
tive life, and no bearing on its common con- 
cerns, and of course exercising no influence 
upon them. Such persons have exhibited the 
strange spectacle of two contradictory charac- 
ters in one man, the one apparently devout, 
the other immoral. But the consistent Chris- 
tian will never separate his religion from his 
life, nor his life from his religion. He will 
seek to incorporate them most intimately with 
each other. And this he will effect, in no 



94 MEANS OP RELIGIOUS IMPROVEMENT. 

small degree, by making his daily prayers, not 
the expression of general principles, and 
indefinite confession, the recitation of articles 
of faith, or declaration of vague desires aftei 
holiness; but the expression of those senti- 
ments which belong to his peculiar condition, 
and a perpetual reference to his personal 
character and circumstances. It is for these 
and concerning these that he will pray ; and 
therefore his prayers will vary as these do. 

So much, in a general way, respecting the 
subjects of private devotion. Next we may 
say a few words respecting the posture. This 
need not be invariably the same. Many have 
laid stress upon it ; but it seems, to me there 
is .a certain freedom to be allowed in this 
particular to those who are invited ■ to come 
boldly to the throne of grace.' Provided we 
secure the right state of the heart, it can mat- 
ter little what the attitude of the body may be. 
There are times when the lowest prostration 
seems best to express and promote the senti- 
ment of lowly adoration and broken-hearted 
humiliation in which the worshipper suppli- 
cates his Father. But again, in a different 
tone of spirit, he is prompted to stand erect, 



PRAYER. 95 

and lift up Ins head and hands, as an attitude 
most corresponding to the elevated sen- 
timents by which he is filled. While 
sometimes he feels that in walking to and fro, 
or sitting with his head leaning upon his 
hands, he can best summon his mind to 
spiritual worship. Cecil says, that his oratory 
was a little walk in the corner of his chamber, 
where he paced backward and forward as he 
prayed. Others have been able to be devout 
only on their knees. What I would briefly 
urge is, that you be not scrupulous on this 
head. Allow yourself in any mode. Try va- 
rious modes. Adopt, from time to time, that 
which best cultivates and encourages the right 
tone of feeling. At the same time, you will 
probably find some truth in the remark, that 
the adoption of a suitable posture aids the 
adoption of a suitable frame of mind ; that the 
expression of reverence in the attitude conveys 
a feeling of reverence to the spirit ; for which 
reason it will be generally best to assume the 
posture most associated with the sentiments of 
devotion, and depart from it only when the 
change may be favorable to engagedness and 
fervor of mind. The soul may be as truly 



96 MEANS OF RELIGIOUS IMPROVEMENT. 

prostrated when you stand, or walk, or ride, or 
work, or lie in your bed, as when you knee! 
before the altar. 

Neither be too scrupulous concerning the 
use of your lips. It is oftentimes as well, or 
better, to pray mentally, without uttering a 
60und. Yet at the same time there is danger, 
/f this become our practice, that it will end in 
turning prayer into meditation, and that our 
hours of devotion will become hours of musing 
and reverie. This would be injurious ; and 
therefore we should commonly use articulate 
language. Our thoughts are so much asso- 
ciated with words, and words with their 
sounds, that it is not easy to think connectedly 
and profitably without the use of speech. It 
is well, as I have before said, to muse for a 
time; but when, after musing, the fire is 
kindled within us, as the Psalmist expresses 
it, then we should ' speak with our tongues.' 
We shall find this an essential aid in render- 
ing our sentiments and train of thought 
distinct to ourselves; and in so impressing 
them on our memories, that we shall be able 
to employ them afterward for our guidance 
and comfort. Good sentiments, which merely 



PRAYER 97 

pass through the mind, but are not put into 
words, are apt to leave no trace behind them ; 
and he who should habitually indulge himself 
in thinking his prayers, instead of expressing 
them, would find it extremely difficult to say 
what he had prayed for, or to turn to any 
account in common life the employment of 
his sacred hours. 

Meditation is, in its nature, an act very 
distinct from prayer, and must be very dis- 
tinct in its effects. Some effects may be 
common to the two; but much of the peculiar 
and the happiest influence of devotion on the 
character must be lost to the man who 
allows musing to take the place of prayer. 
It is one thing to contemplate a blessing and 
desire it; quite another to ask for it. The 
latter may require a very different temper 
of mind from the former ; and it is plain that 
the promise of God is given to those who ask, 
not to those who desire ; to those who employ 
petition, not those who are content with con- 
templation. Therefore arrange your thoughts 
in words ; and generally give them a distinct 
utterance in sound; pausing occasionally for 
reflection, and being certain that you do not 
9 



98 MEANS OF RELIGIOUS IMPROVEMENT. 

employ words only, but that the thoughts 
which they express are actually in your mind. 
In regard to the choice of words, be not 
too anxious. Take those which express your 
meaning, without regard to their elegance 
or eloquence. You will naturally fall into 
language borrowed from the Scriptures, and 
that is always good and appropriate. Only 
take heed that you do not use it mechanically, 
and without due consideration of its signifi- 
cance. But when you do not use the terms 
of scripture, take those which express what 
you mean, and consider nothing further. I 
would lay the more stress upon this, because 
some persons actually plead, as an excuse for 
the neglect of this duty, that they have no 
command of language, and cannot readily 
find correct and proper words. This would 
be a very good reason for not attempting to 
pray in public ; and it were to be wished that 
some, who are forward to exhibit themselves 
in this act, would consider it more seriously. 
It is an injury to religion, when he, who 
speaks to God in the public assembly, or the 
circle of social worship, does it in rude, 
hesitating, confused, inappropriate, or ungram- 



PRAYER. 99 

matical language. But in private, when you 
are simply to pour out your heart, and have 
no witness but Heaven, allow yourself to put 
aside all solicitude on this head. Speak as 
you feel, and what you feel ; only taking care 
that your feelings are right, and that you know 
what they are. Alas ! you will often find it a 
task difficult enough to regulate your feelings, 
govern your thoughts, repress wandering de- 
sires, keep out vain images, and bring your 
soul to a proper attitude of reverence and love, 
without the added embarrassment of arrang 
ing words by the rules of rhetoric and taste. 
This is an occupation which interferes with 
the spirituality of the duty you are per- 
forming. I beseech you to disregard it 
altogether. 

As respects times and seasons, it may be 
considered as a salutary rule, that it is better 
to pray often than long. There are times, 
undoubtedly, when the mind is glowing and 
the heart full, that the exercise may be advan- 
tageously continued through a long period, 
and the disciple, like his Master, may spend 
the whole night in prayer. It would be a 
pity to check the current when it flows thus 



100 MEANS OF RELIGIOUS IMPROVEMENT. 

spontaneously, or to lose the luxury of such 
a season. There may be occasions, too, 
when duty and improvement sha.l seem to 
demand an extraordinary continuance in 
devotion. I do not therefore recommend 
that you should limit yourself to a certain 
stinted number of minutes. But, as a 
general rule, do not covet long prayers; 
rather multiply their number than increase 
their length. This is the rule of Christ; 
who insists that we pray often and always, 
but that we do not pray long. A most 
wise regulation. For the mind is easily 
wearied by a long exercise, and is likely to 
return to it slowly and reluctantly; and in the 
interval, it is liable to go back, like the 
swinging pendulum, into a directly opposite 
state. From which cause it may too readily 
happen that the extended devotions of the 
morning shall exhaust the attention of the 
mind, and produce religious listlessness during 
the day. Whereas, a shorter act of worship, 
which should excite without exhausting, which 
should kindle the fire but not burn it out, 
would leave a glow upon the feelings, that 
would abide for hours, and prompt to holy 



PRAYER. 101 

thoughts and spontaneous acts of worship at 
short intervals throughout the day. In this 
manner, the great object of keeping up a 
religious wakefulness and sensibility is with 
greater certainty obtained, and the whole 
current of life more surely colored by the 
infusion of religious sentiment. 

Let this, therefore, be your method. Ac- 
custom yourself to what is called ejaculatory 
prayer ; that is, to very frequent petitions and 
thanksgivings, bursting out from your soul at 
all times and wherever you may be. Walk 
with God as you would journey with an 
intimate friend ; not satisfied to make forma! 
addresses to him at stated seasons, but turning 
to him in brief and familiar speech whenevei 
opportunity offers, or occasion or feeling 
prompts. Remember that ceremonious ad- 
dresses are appointed, and are chiefly necessa- 
ry, on social and ceremonious occasions, when 
a company of m~n is together, and many 
minds are to act at once. They can act and 
be acted upon simultaneously in no other 
way ; and therefore, in civil and state affairs, 
as well as in religious, this method is in use 
But when we come to more private, domestic, 
9* 



102 MEANS OF RELIGIOUS IMPROVEMENT. 

confidential intercourse, we abandon these 
formal and complimentary arrangements, and 
find it most natural and happy to do as occa- 
sion prompts, in a free and unrestrained style 
of conduct and of speech. Just so it should 
be in our more private and confidential 
communion with the great Father of our 
spirits. The more it is unembarrassed by 
precise forms and ceremonious appendages, 
and left to the promptings of the feelings and 
of the moment, the more appropriate is it to 
our title of ' children/ and the greater is the 
felicity which it furnishes. 

It has, of course, been implied in the pre- 
ceding remarks, that all is to be done in the 
spirit of devotion. In what manner this may 
be effected, it is necessary to state more 
distinctly; and the rules to be given for this 
end will sufficiently explain in what that 
spirit consists. 

First, then, the genuine, effectual prayer 
is the prayer of Faith ; not of words, not of 
form ; not an exercise of the understanding, 
reasoning on the attributes and dispensations 
of God, and uttering its judgments on duty ; 
but an address to him, accompanied by a 



PRAYER. 103 

confident persuasion that he hears and regards* 
' He that cometh to God,' says the Apostle, 
' must believe that he is, and that he is a 
rewarder of them that diligently seek him.' 
Of this there must be no doubt on the mind. 
You must realize that you are actually speak- 
ing to him, and he listening to you, as truly 
as when you address yourself to a visible 
mortal ; and you must have as real a conviction 
that something depends on the act, and as real 
a desire to receive what you ask for, as when 
you make a request for some important favor 
to a human friend. If you doubt, your prayer 
is weak and inefficacious. 'Ask in faith,' 
says James, c nothing wavering ; for he that 
wavereth is like a wave of the sea, driven 
with the wind and tossed.' His uncertain 
and fluctuating mind wants stability, and 
cannot receive a blessing. Therefore it is 
added, ' Let not that man think that he shall 
obtain any thing from the Lord.' May we 
not suppose, that much of the dissatisfaction 
attendant on our prayers, and much of their 
unfruitfulness, is owing to the doubtful, 
hesitating state of mind in which they are 
offered? And what can be more miserably 



104 MEANS OF RELIGIOUS IMPROVEMENT. 

destructive of all energy and interest in the 
employment ? If you doubt whether you 
shall be heard, you will pray timidly and 
coldly, without courage or spirit. If your 
prayers are thus lifeless, your conduct will 
be so too, and all spiritual savor will fade 
away from your life. Do not, then, allow in 
yourself this doubtfulness of temper. The 
most extravagant fanaticism, which sees a 
visible light descending as it prays, and finds 
an answer in presentiments and dreams, 
is not more mistaken, and is far more happy. 
Give yourself up to the assurance, that they 
who ask shall be heard, and go ' boldly to 
the throne of grace.' Jesus, by his invitations 
and doctrine, has given you a right to this 
confidence; and it is only in the exercise 
of it, humbly, but firmly, that you may ' cast 
out the fear which hath torment.' 

Next, your prayer must be fervent; that 
is, your affections must be engaged and in- 
terested in it. You must not barely, as a 
reasoning philosopher, or well instructed pupil, 
declare what you coolly judge to be right, 
and assert that man, in his present relations, 
ought to seek and do what is right, and tha* 



PRAYER. 105 

God, as the Father and Governor, should be 
adored and obeyed (which is the tenor of the 
devotional exercises one sometimes hears) ; 
but you must set yourself actually to do these 
things. You can only be said to pray when 
the sentiment you utter springs from your 
heart; and, rising above all the arguments 
and persuasions of the wise, you pour out 
your feelings, as a little child confides its 
thoughts to a parents bosom ; thinking only 
of your own dependence and need, and of 
God's ability and readiness to succor you, 
and earnestly aspiring after that purity and 
piety, which you feel to constitute the excel- 
lence and bliss of man. When this fervent 
glow is upon your mind, you pray in the 
spirit. Seek for it. Be not content with- 
out it. 

In the aext place, do not allow yourself to 
grow weary. Persevere ; however ill satisfied, 
however discouraged, persevere. Open the 
New Testament, and you will see how this is 
insisted upon, again and again, and by various 
illustrations. ' That men should always pray, 
and never faint/ was the great moral of more 
than one of our Lord's parables ; and to ' pray 
E 



106 MEANS OF RELIGIOUS IMPROVEMENT. 

without ceasing' was the corresponding direc- 
tion of his Apostles. Situated as we are in 
this world, there is danger that, perceiving little 
immediate fruit from our devotions, we should 
relax our diligence in them ; first doubting 
their value, then losing our interest in them, 
and then ceasing to perform them. But we 
should recollect, that, in this case, as in all 
the most important and admirable provisions 
of Divine Wisdom, it is the order of Heav- 
en to give, not to a single exertion, nor to a 
few acts, nor even to some continuance of 
effort, but only to a long, unremitted, perse- 
vering effort. We read this lesson every 
where. Look at that glorious operation of 
God, by which the sun cherishes and matures 
the fruits of the earth for the sustenance of 
its creatures. It is not accomplished by one 
act, nor by several acts, nor yet by sudden, 
violent exertions of power. He sends out his 
beams steadily, day by day, month after 
month; yet the fruit is still green, the harvest 
immature; and if, weary with the work, he 
should abandon it, famine might devastate the 
globe, when but six days' longer perseverance 
would see it successful. The whole toil of the 



PRAYER 107 

season might thus be lost, when a trifling addi- 
tion only was necessary to render it all-effective. 
In how many other cases is the same truth il- 
lustrated ! Will you, then, abandon your pray- 
ers, because you do not witness the effect from 
them which you desire ? Will you be discour- 
aged, when, by a little longer continuance, you 
may receive the full blessing at once ? Shall 
the husbandman ' wait patiently/ and will 
you, looking for an immortal harvest, lose it 
for want of patience ? No. This is the eter- 
nal, immutable rule in regard to all great ac- 
quisitions. Piety and virtue, character and 
immortality, depend upon a long succession 
of actions, neither of them, taken singly, of 
essential moment, yet all, in the aggregate, es- 
sential to effect the great end in view. Apply 
this consideration to your prayers, and reso- 
lutely persevere. 

Thus it is the humble prayer of confident 
faith, fervent and persevering, from which 
you are to hope benefit and acceptance. 

But you may ask, How shall I know that it 
is accepted, and with what answer should I be 
satisfied ? 

To the first part of this question, there is 



108 MEANS OF RELIGIOUS IMPROVEMENT. 

but one reply. If you are conscious of having 
prayed aright, you may be assured that your 
prayer is accepted. You can have no exter- 
nal evidence of the fact ; but the Scriptures 
every where declare, that a right prayer 
is certainly accepted. This, then, is a reason 
for self-examination, and for carefully regu- 
lating the state of your mind. 

You may imagine, however, that you are 
rather to judge by the answer to your prayers ; 
and that if, after offering earnest petitions for 
certain blessings, you find them denied, you 
are to suppose that your devotions are not ac- 
cepted. 

In regard to this, I observe, that the purpose 
of prayer is twofold — particular and general ; 
the first, to supplicate certain specific bless- 
ings which we need or desire; the second, to 
obtain the divine favor in general ; or, which 
is equivalent to it, to obtain that state of mind 
and heart which is always an object of com- 
placency with God, and secures his permanent 
approbation. Now it is evident, that the 
latter is an object infinitely more important 
than the former. It is of no consequence 
whether your receive certain gifts of health, or 



PRAYER. 109 

safety, or prosperous affairs, in comparison 
with the importance of attaining that frame of 
soul which God approves, and which will fit 
you for heaven. If, then, you have plainly 
gathered from your devotions the advantage 
of a religious growth, if you are brought by 
them nearer to God, formed into the likeness 
of Jesus Christ, and made superior to the 
things of earth and sense; — then you have 
gained the highest objects which man may as- 
pire to, and should feel no dissatisfaction or 
doubt because inferior blessings are denied. 
Having received the greater, you should be 
content not to receive the less. And this is a 
sufficient reply to the second part of the ques- 
tion stated above : viz. With what answer 
shall I be satisfied 1 Be satisfied with that an- 
swer which is found in the improving state of 
your own religious affections; in the peace, 
serenity, confidence, and hope, which belong 
to a mind habitually conversant with God, and 
which God bestows only on such. 

I do not mean to say, that other and more 

specific answers may not be sometimes given; 

for doubtless the devout mind may often have 

reason to trace particular blessings, and with 

10 



110 MEANS OF RELIGIOUS IMPROVEMENT. 

a practised eye may trace them, to a source 
which has been opened in reply to the prayer 
of faith. When you shall perceive it to be so 
in your own case, happy will you be; and 
you will not fail to acknowledge it with suit- 
able gratitude. But what I mean to say is, 
that this is not what you are habitually to ex- 
pect; you are not to wait for this in order 
to the satisfaction of your mind. God feeds 
his children with spiritual food ; and it is 
one part of his discipline of their faith, to 
deny them temporal blessings in order to 
the more abundant bestowal of those that are 
spiritual ; to advance the moral man to perfec- 
tion through the disappointment or mortifica- 
tion of the outward man. Do not, then, be 
uneasy, because your prayers may at first view 
seem inefficacious. The service of truth and 
virtue is not to be rewarded by the wages of 
this world's goods. Health, strength, riches, 
prosperity, are not the best, they are not the 
appropriate, recompense, for self-denial, humil- 
ity, benevolence, and purity. The true recom- 
pense is eternal and imperishable. If you 
have this, why be dissatisfied that you have 
not the other? If you have this, how can 



PRAYER. Ill 

you fancy that God has not accepted your 
prayer ? 

To which it may be added, that, if you 
prayed aright, you prayed in the spirit of sub- 
mission ; not only acknowledging, but feeling, 
the wisdom of Heaven to be greater than your 
own, and desiring to obtain only such gifts as 
that wisdom should judge it best to bestow. 
Such gifts, of course, are granted. If, there- 
fore, you were sincere, you should be content. 
You are not relieved, perhaps, from the 
trouble against which you prayed; the evil 
you fear comes, the good you desire is denied, 
notwithstanding your earnest supplication. 
But does it follow that your prayer is slighted ? 
Believe it not. What you designed was, to 
ask blessings; you named the things which 
you esteemed such ; but at the same time you 
knew that your judgment was fallible. If 
God has refused the things specified, it is be- 
cause in his judgment they would not prove 
blessings, and he has bestowed in their stead 
an increase of faith, which is a real blessing, 
Or perhaps I may say, he has proposed to you 
a discipline of your faith, which will prove a 
transcendent good, unless, by your blind dis- 



112 MEANS OP RELIGIOUS IMPROVEMENT. 

content and misuse of it, you turn it into a 
curse. 

It will follow from these remarks, that we 
are to dwell in prayer on topics rather of a 
spiritual than of a temporal nature ; that we 
should ask such things as relate rather to our 
character than to our condition, rather to our 
religious than to our worldly prosperity. For, 
these being the chief objects of desire and 
happiness (so much so, that our petitions for 
earthly good oftentimes receive no reply 
but in the state of our own minds), it must 
follow that they should be our chief objects 
of interest and desire in our exalted hours 
of communication with God. Our religious 
addresses in those hours are made up of 
adoration, thanksgiving, confession, petition. 
Now, two of these, adoration and confession, 
relate to spiritual objects exclusively. The 
other two relate to objects of both a spiritual 
and temporal character, the blessings and 
wants of both soul and body. But it is plain 
that the former fir exceed the latter in num- 
ber and ill importance, and should therefore 
occupy the larger share of attention. If, then, 
you would do what is most consonant to the 



PRA/ER. 113 

nature of the exercise, and your own most 
real wants ; if you would receive blessings 
corresponding to the petitions you express : 
you will dwell principally on spiritual and 
immortal good ; seeking first of all, in 
prayer as at all times, ■ the kingdom of God 
and its righteousness.' You will do this, 
also, if you would copy the pattern which 
our Lord has given ; for of the seven sen- 
tences of the prayer which he taught his 
disciples, only one has relation to man's tem- 
poral condition. You will do it, if you would 
imitate our great Exemplar and Master, 
whose recorded prayers have exclusive 
regard to the welfare of his spiritual king- 
dom and the bestowment of internal bless- 
ings. 

And it is not to the example alone of the 
Saviour that you are to have reference in 
your prayers. You are also to regard him 
as the Mediator through whom they are to 
be offered. It belongs to the system of our 
religion, that the thought of . its Founder 
should be associated in the minds of its dis- 
ciples with all that they are and do; with 
their sense of obligation, and their sentiments 
10* L 



114 MEANS OF RELIGIOUS IMPROVEMENT. 

of piety. They are ( to do every thing in the 
name of the Lord Jesus ;' with a conscious- 
ness of their connexion with him, and of their 
dependence upon the instruction, motives, 
and strength, which they have received from 
him. They are ' to walk by faith in the Son 
of God.' His image is to be blended with their 
whole life. Especially is this to be the case in 
the acts of life which are strictly and pecu- 
liarly religious. l Whatsoever ye ask in my 
name, believing.' ' Giving thanks unto God 
and the Father by him/ It is only through 
his instruction, authority, and encouragement, 
that they know their privilege of filial worship, 
and are enabled so to offer it that they may 
look for acceptance. The hope of pardon on 
the confession of sin is grounded upon what 
he has done, suffered, and declared ; and 
the confidence with which the penitent seeks 
forgiveness and life, is owing to his trust in 
the word of Jesus, and his being able to lean 
on him as a friend and advocate, when he 
casts himself a suppliant before God. Under- 
stand, then, that the acceptable prayer is that 
which is made in the name of the great In- 
tercessor: and let your heart be warmed 



PRAYER. 115 

and imboldened in your devotions by the con- 
sciousness of your relation to him ' whom the 
Father heareth always.' 

I will add but two further remarks before 
closing this topic. First, I have all along 
assumed, that I am addressing a person sin- 
cerely engaged in the pursuit of religious 
attainments. This sincerity of pursuit is a 
fundamental requisite, without which all ex- 
hortations, means, assistance, sacrifices, will 
be only thrown away. If, therefore, after 
having made some effort after a spirit of de- 
votion, in pursuance of the course recom- 
mended, you find, as men sometimes do, that 
you derive from it neither improvement nor 
satisfaction, I recommend to you to examine 
whether you are really in earnest; whether 
you do, actually in your heart, desire reli- 
gious improvement; whether, in short, there 
oe not in you a lurking preference for your 
present state of mind, and an attachment to 
some passion, taste, or pursuit, incompatible 
with a zealous devotedness to Christian truth, 
and a suitable attention to the discipline 
which it demands. Many are, no doubt, pre- 
vented from advancement by secret hin- 



116 MEANS OF RELIGIOUS IMPROVEMENT. 

aerances of this nature, of whose operation 
tney are not at all aware. If, upon inquiry, 
you cannot discover that it is so with you, 
then examine strictly the methods you have 
pursued, and the observances you have prac- 
tised. You will probably find that they have 
been in some particulars injudiciously se- 
lected, or improperly or insufficiently attend- 
ed ; that you have failed in a resolute, 
steadfast, systematic adherence to your own 
rules ; that you have habitually allowed 
yourself in something wrong, or neglected 
something right. Look after your mistake. 
When you shall have discovered and correct- 
ed it, you may be certain of securing the im- 
provement you desire. 

Secondly, take heed that you do not allow 
yourself to fancy, that an observance of 
these or similar rules constitutes all your duty 
under this head. Do not forget, that tho 
devotion which Christianity teaches is nothing 
less than perpetually thinking, feeling, and 
acting, as becomes a child of God, — a perpet- 
ual worship. This is the end at which you 
are to aim ; — an end, however, which is 
not to be attained without the use of 



PRAYER. 117 

means; and the directions in the preceding 
pages are designed simply to point out some 
of the means. Some persons do not need 
such directions. For them they are not 
designed. But there are others to whom they 
must be welcome and wholesome. Let such 
use them, but without forgetting that they are 
means only. Let them guard, from the first 
and always, against the idea, that the practice 
of these will secure the great object, without 
any further exertion or sacrifice ; that to be 
devout men, they have only to observe stated 
seasons, and perform stated acts. There 
cannot be a more pernicious error. It is at 
variance with the whole nature and spirit of 
Christianity. God is to be served by the en- 
tire life ; by its actions as well as its thoughts, 
its duties as well as its desires, its deeds as 
well as its feelings. 

The religious man must have the frame of 
his mind and the tenor of his conduct at all 
times religious ; in the market and the family 
no less than in the closet and the church. In- 
deed, considering how much more of life is 
spent abroad in action and trial than is passed 
in the worship and contemplation of retire- 



118 MEANS OP RELIGIOUS IMPROVEMENT. 

ment, it is plainly of greater consequence to 
watch and labor in the world than in private. 
Besides that it is easier to be religiously dis- 
posed for an hour a day, when reading the 
Bible or kneeling at the altar, than it is to be 
so during the many other hours which are full 
of the world's temptations, and when all the 
irregular passions are liable to be excited. 
Remember, then, to try your prayers by your 
life ; you may know how sincere they are, by 
their agreement or disagreement with your 
habitual sentiments and conduct. Regulate 
your life by your prayers; in vain do you 
think yourself religious, if you go with holy 
words and humble confessions to the Divine 
presence, but at other times live in thought- 
lessness and sin. True religion is a single 
thing. Devout exercises form a part of its 
exhibition; holy living forms another part. 
Unless they exist together, it is to no purpose 
that they exist at all. To separate them is to 
destroy the religion. To this consideration, 
then, let your perpetual and vigilant attention 
be given ; and be satisfied with your hours of 
devotion only when they exercise a sacred 
and constant influence over the condition of 



PREACHING 119 

your mind and life, and have made them holy 
to the Lord. 

IV. Preaching. 

From the more private means of religious 
improvement, we pass to the consideration of 
those which are in their nature public. 

Preaching is a divine institution; and its 
authority and wisdom have been illustriously 
justified in the success which has attended it in 
every age of the church. It is to a publica- 
tion from the lips of living teachers, that the 
gospel owes its spread through so large a por- 
tion of the globe. At its first introduction, 
at its reformation, and in its present diffusion, 
it has been the ' company of the preachers ' 
that has arrested attention to its divine truths, 
and subdued the hearts of men to its holy 
power. And it always must be the case, how- 
ever great may be the efficacy of those more 
personal instruments of which we have spoken, 
that the pulpit shall be the main engine for 
the incitement and instruction of the individual 
mind, and the maintenance of the power of re- 
ligion in the Christian world. 

Multitudes, however, habitually attend the 



120 MEANS OF RELIGIOUS IMPROVEMENT. 

preaching of the gospel, with little profit, and 
with no adequate apprehension of its purpose 
or value. Habit, thoughtlessness, inattention, 
worldliness, cause its sublime instructions to 
be unheeded, and render its powerful appeals 
unimpressive. It may have been so with you, 
m times past. But if you are now truly awake 
to the necessity of studying the improvement 
of your character, and making God's will the 
rule of your life, you will listen eagerly to the 
preaching of his truth, and drink it in as a 
thirsty man water. I say nothing, therefore, 
to urge the duty of attendance in the house of 
prayer. You will esteem it one of your privi- 
leges, and will feel that, however imperfectly 
the word may be dispensed, it is yet full of a 
divine savor, and profitable to any one who 
seeks his soul's good rather than his mind's 
entertainment. 

In order to the greatest advantage from this 
duty, it is well, in the first place, to give heed 
to the manner in which the other hours of the 
Sabbath are spent. There can be no doubt 
that one considerable cause of the ineflicacy 
of preaching is to be found in the circum- 
stance that the remainder of the Sabbath is 



PREACHING. 121 

passed ia a manner little likely to prepare the 
mind for its religious services, and suited to 
obliterate the impressions received from them. 
The sentiments excited in holy time, instead 
of being cherished, are checked and smother- 
ed by the uncongenial engagements of the rest 
of the day ; and Sunday becomes at length 
even a day for hardening the heart, through 
this habitual resistance of the most solemn 
truths. For, when exposed to their frequent 
repetition, if it do not yield to them, it must 
inevitably become callous to them. This evil 
you are to guard against, by making the whole 
occupation of the day harmonize with that 
portion of it which is spent in public worship. 
And to do this implies no fanatical recluseness 
or morose sullenness. It implies nothing but 
the endeavor of a reasonable man, who finds 
that the cares of the six days tend to distract 
his feelings from religion, to counteract them 
on the day set apart for that purpose. It is 
only saying, with regard to all worldly occu- 
pations, what Burke said of politics in the 
pulpit ; — Six days are full of them, and six 
days are enough ; let us give one day to some- 
thing better. 

11 



122 MEANS OP RELIGIOUS IMPROVEMENT. 

You will therefore be careful so to spend 
your morning hours, that you shall enter the 
sanctuary with a prepared mind, — already 
touched with a sense of God, and tuned to his 
praise. Your reading and your thoughts will 
be directed to this purpose; and instead of 
cherishing or inviting vain thoughts and a 
light state of feeling, by lounging over a news- 
paper, or a novel, or by conversation on the 
passing events of .the day, you will occupy 
yourself on such subjects as shall hallow the 
temper of your mind, and exclude the crowd 
of impertinent desires. Then you will be 
ready to join feelingly in the public service of 
your Maker, and listen profitably to the exhor- 
tations of the pulpit. 

You have doubtless observed in your own 
case, and heard it remarked by others, that 
the same discourse, under different circum- 
stances, seems like a very different thing ; that 
what at one time is listened to with pleasure 
and interest, at another is heard with indiffer- 
ence. To what can this be owing, but to the 
variation in the hearer's state of mind ? The 
discourse is the same ; but it addresses itself 
to a soul at one time tuned to the occasion 



PREACHING. 123 

and the subject, and at another tuned to some- 
thing else. So important is adaptation ; — as 
might be illustrated in a thousand ways. 
Hence you will study to carry a prepared 
mind to the hearing of the word, that you may 
not fail of receiving the utmost edification. 
Otherwise you may sit under the most powerful 
ministry, and hear divine truth dispensed with 
an eloquence worthy of angels, and yet sit 
unmoved. It can be powerful to your heart, 
it can effectually promote your progress in the 
Christian life, only through your own prepara- 
tion to receive it, and in proportion to that 
preparation. 

Let me also caution you to remember, that 
there is good and important matter belonging 
to every subject which the pulpit may treat ; 
and it is very unwise (to use the mildest 
expression) to turn away dissatisfied, because 
a sermon does not happen to fall in with the 
state of your feelings. Hearers are often 
guilty of great injustice in this way. They 
are too ready to measure the preacher's fidelity 
by the degree in which he speaks to their own 
immediate experience. They are earnestly 
engaged in particular views, feelings, trains 



124 MEANS OF RELIGIOUS IMPROVEMENT. 

of thought, processes of experience, which* 
filling their mind, seem to them all in all; 
and if the preacher does not touch upon these, 
they condemn him as dry, cold, and jejune. 
But they should consider, that there are other 
minds to be suited besides their own, and that 
what is so ill adapted to themselves may be 
precisely what is needed by others; nay, 
precisely what they themselves may need at 
another time. Instead of expressing dissatis- 
faction, they should rejoice that every one 
receives in turn a portion adapted to him, and 
endeavor to elicit something applicable to 
themselves. If they will but seek, they will 
often find a seasonable word when they 
least expect it. Let me entreat you to 
make this your habit. If you do not, it is 
plain that many Sundays will be lost to you, 
(for you cannot have your own case always 
treated,) and you will, moreover, become a 
fastidious and querulous hearer, discontented 
with yourself, and uncomfortable to others. 
But if you resolutely bring your mind to take 
an interest in whatever you hear, you will 
always find cause for contentment and satis- 
faction, if not for edification and delight. 



PREACHING. J 25 

Few things are more hostile to such attend- 
ance on preaching as shall promote religious 
• improvement, than the habit of listening to 
sermons as literary or rhetorical efforts, and 
for the gratification of a literary taste. From 
the very nature of the case, it must result in 
constant dissatisfaction. For let it be con- 
sidered how few of all the authors who have 
published books, are able to give this gratifica- 
tion ; and can it, then, be expected of every 
preacher? How small a proportion of the 
thousands who have preached, have printed 
their sermons ! and how few of these have a 
place among the eminent names of literature ! 
Hence it is impossible that every preacher 
should, every Sunday, satisfy a man who has 
formed his taste on printed specimens of 
excellence, and who comes to gratify it at 
church. It is inevitable that such a one 
should be disappointed and displeased, far 
more often than he shall be tolerably gratified. 
Those who, on this ground, are accustomed 
to speak harshly of ministers, and to excite 
discontent in the community, would do well to 
reflect on the unreasonableness of the requisi- 
tion, and learn that they injure themselves by 
11* 



126 MEANS OF RELIGIOUS IMPROVEMENT. 

ooking for what they cannot expect to find, to 
the neglect of that substantial good which 
alone is intended to be conveyed. But he 
who thinks only of improvement, and the reli- 
gious exercise of his mind, will always find 
something to engage and satisfy him. Dis- 
tinguished talent there may not be, nor 
original thought, nor striking images, nor 
tasteful composition, nor eloquent Reclama- 
tion ; but Christian truth, old and familiar 
perhaps, but still high and important, there al- 
ways will be. Dwelling upon this, excited 
by it to reflection, occupied in studying by its 
light his own character and prospects, and the 
perfections and purposes of God, he has no 
lack of interesting thought. The preacher 
becomes but a secondary object. His God, 
his duty, his salvation, — these are the topics 
on which his mind runs; and these he can 
contemplate : he will not be hindered from 
contemplating them, whatever may be the 
feebleness or deficiencies of him who ministers 
at the altar. 

Bacon has laid down a rule for profitable 
reading, which ought to be sacredly applied to 
preaching, by those who would listen to it 



PREACHING. 127 

profitably : ' Read, not to contradict and 
confute, nor to believe and take for granted 
nor to find talk and discourse, but to weigh 
and consider.' What you hear from your 
minister, ' weigh and consider* for a religious 
end and a personal application. To listen as 
a critic, with a fastidious nicety about diction, 
and a captious sensibility to style, is a sure 
method to defeat what should be the first 
object with the hearer, as it is the great 
purpose of the speaker. For which reason, it 
has been remarked, we are not to be surprised 
that Paul, with all his energy of speech, made 
so few converts, and gathered no church, 
among the Athenians ; the sensitive and intel- 
lectual taste, and love of ingenious fancies, 
v/hich distinguished them, formed a habit of 
mind peculiarly fitted to destroy the capacity 
for receiving any strong and profound impres- 
sions. 

In the next place, if you think that when 
you leave the house of God, you may dis- 
charge from your mind the thoughts and 
sentiments there excited ; if you immediately 
join in frivolous society and ordinary conver- 
sation; if you occupy your time in making 



128 MEANS OF RELIGIOUS IMPROVEMENT. 

visits of ceremony, or in reading the Sunday 
newspaper and books of amusement, you can 
derive little advantage from the service in 
which you have engaged. However serious 
may have been your attendance, however 
earnest the wish for improvement, you are 
taking the surest method to render it all 
vain. The word spoken must be treasured 
up, the counsels of wisdom must be made to 
abide in the heart, the instructions and 
warnings of Heaven must be fixed by reflec- 
tion and thought, or the impressions you have 
received will be transitory, and the good 
purposes which spring up within you will pass 
away like the early dew. If the preacher 
have presented arguments for the truth of 
Christianity, or for the support of any of its 
great doctrines, of what use has this been to 
you, if you shall know nothing about them 
to-morrow? And how can you hope to re- 
member what is so difficult to be retained, if 
you take no pains to refresh your mind with 
it by immediate retirement and contempla- 
tion? If he have been urging you to the 
6tudy of your own heart, and pointing out the 
Bources of self-deception, and the means of 



PREACHING. 129 

preservation against the sins which easily 
beset you, and you have been affected and 
humbled, and made to resolve on greater 
watchfulness; of what avail will this be, if 
you immediately abandon yourself to frivolous 
topics of thought? and how are you any the 
better prepared for the temptations and trials 
of to-morrow, if you thus drive from your 
mind those views which were to strengthen 
you? Or, if he have presented to you the 
elevating truths respecting God, and heaven, 
and man's prospects of glory, and thus raised 
in your spirit a glow of divine love, and a 
sense of your exalted destiny, and you at once 
turn from it all to employments and thoughts 
which are wholly of earth ; then is not that 
holy excitement worse than lost? have you 
not done something to harden your heart, and 
render it less capable of receiving the same 
impression again ? For you have resisted its 
motions, and quenched its fire, by calling it 
back to this lower world when it was just be- 
ginning to delight itself in heaven. 

Depend upon it, that the mere attendance 
upon public worship is very insufficient, with- 
out some care to fix its impressions afterward, 
M 



130 MEANS OF RELIGIOUS IMPROVEMENT. 

and to recall and strengthen what you have 
heard and enjoyed. It is wise, therefore, to 
go back from church to retirement, there to 
think over the truths that you have heard, 
refresh the feelings that you have indulged, 
apply to your conscience the doctrine deliver- 
ed, and supplicate the divine blessing. By 
habitually doing this, you will in time become 
possessed of a large fund of religious informa- 
tion and moral truth, which otherwise might 
have been lost to you ; and instead of being 
in the condition of those, who cannot per- 
ceive that the pulpit has ever taught them any 
thing, you will find it a most efficient and per- 
suasive instructer. 

It is a custom, with some persons, to make 
a record of the discourses which they have 
heard, entering in a book the texts and 
subjects, together with a brief sketch of the 
train of remark. This is a very commenda- 
ble and useful custom, provided it be not al- 
lowed to take off one's thoughts from the 
duty of self-application, and do not become a 
mere effort of memory and trial of skill. If 
this be avoided, the practice will be found 
useful in many respects. The exercise of 



PREACHING. 131 

writing greatly assists that of thinking, and 
discovers to one whether his ideas are dis- 
tinct and clear. It enables and compels him 
to look closely at the subject, so that he 
cannot dismiss it with the cursory and 
impatient examination which he might be 
otherwise tempted to give it. It enables him 
afterwards to read, with distinctness, the 
impressions which he received, and to revive 
the purposes which he formed in consequence 
of them. His record becomes a spiritual 
monitor, reminding him, whenever he consults 
it, of the lessons he has learned, and the 
expostulations he has heard ; and prompting 
him to a more definite comparison of his 
actual attainments with the standard which 
has been placed before him. The advan- 
tages, which may thus be derived from it, will 
be far more than a compensation for all the 
trouble attending it. 

But, whether you make such memoranda or 
not, the practice of recalling to mind the 
instructions and reflections of God's house, 
if systematically pursued, will save you from 
the pain of making the complaint which we' 
hear from so many that they cannot remem* 



132 MEANS OF RELIGIOUS IMPROVEMENT. 

ber what they have heard, oftentimes not even 
the text ; and this, too, from persons who can 
repeat all the particulars of a long story to 
which they have listened, or a longer con- 
versation in which they have taken oart. 
Why this difference ? Partly because they 
attended with greater interest to the story and 
the conversation, partly because these are 
more easily remembered than a formal dis- 
course, but principally because these are 
matters that they are accustomed to recall to 
mind and repeat, which they have not been 
accustomed to do in regard to sermons. The 
want of practice is the principal difficulty. 
Make it an object always to remember, and 
be in the habit of going over again in your 
mind, the principal topics, and you will not be 
troubled with want of memory. 

I should do wrong, however, if I did not 
here speak a word of comfort to those humble 
and sincere Christians, whose advantages in 
early life were not such as to enable them 
to form any habits of intellectual exertion, 
and who are, in consequence, subject to a 
weakness of memory which they have strug- 
gled against in vain, and which is a source 



PREACHINCJ 133 

of constant unhappiness to them. Every 
thing they hear from the pulpit slips from 
their minds, even if it have highly moved and 
delighted them ; and they fear that this is a 
sign of unprofitableness and sin. To such it 
may be well to recommend the reply of John 
Newton to one who came to him sorrowing 
with the same complaint. You forget, said 
he, what was preached to you. So, too, you 
forget upon what food you dined a week or a 
month ago ; yet you are none the less sure 
that you received nourishment from it : and 
no doubt, also, that your spiritual food nour- 
ished you, though you have forgotten in what 
it consisted. So long as you received it with 
pleasure and a healthy digestion, and it has 
kept you a living and growing soul, it can 
be of no consequence whether you can partic- 
ularly remember it or not. 

Finally, preaching, however ineffectual it 
may often prove, is one of the chief means of 
grace, and is capable of being made, by every 
individual, a principal agent in his religious 
advancement. Let it be so to you. It will 
be so if you attend on it in a right spirit, and 
faithfully strive to gain nourishment from it. 
12 



134 MEANS OF RELIGIOUS IMPROVEMENT. 

Do not let it be your shame and guilt, that 
you sit year after year within hearing of the 
preacher's voice, and yet are none the better. 
Do not suffer it to be with yourself, as it is 
with many, that preaching grows less inter- 
esting as they advance. This, it is true, is 
in part owing to the nature of the mind, 
which finds a delight in what is new and 
fresh, which it does not perceive in what has 
been long familiar. There is a charm in 
listening to the word preached, when the 
soul is first awakened to an interest in the 
concerns of its salvation, and devours every 
sentence as a hungry man his food, which 
cannot be fully retained in cooler and ma- 
turer years. But if the charm be entirely 
gone, if the relish be altogether lost, it must 
be through your own fault. It must be 
because you have not watched over the tastes 
and susceptibility of your mind, but have, 
through neglect, suffered it to become hard- 
ened. Be but faithful to yourself, cherish 
your tenderness of spirit, take pains to keep 
alive the ardor and interest of your younger 
days, arid you will find that your feelings will 
not become wholly dead to the voice of the 



PREACHING. 135 

preacher, nor will time and age be able to rob 
you of this source of your enjoyment. The 
ancient philosopher, on whom has been well 
bestowed the title of ' Rome's least mortal 
mind/ in writing beautifully of old age, tells 
us, that the great reason why the faculties of 
men are impaired in the declining years of a 
long life, is, that they cease to use and exer- 
cise them ; and that any man, by continuing 
vigorously to exert them as in earlier life, 
may hope to retain them to the last, in some- 
thing of their original power. The remark 
may be applied to the old age of the Chris- 
tian. By faithfully watching over and exer- 
cising his feelings and emotions, he may 
retain them in some good degree of liveliness 
and vigor to the latest period. And although 
the zest with which he hung on the minis- 
tration of the word, in the first ardor of his 
youthful faith, may be gone, he will maintain 
a sober interest, and find a tranquil delight, 
suited to the serenity of his fading days, and 
to the peacefulness of the expectation with 
which he waits the summons to go home. 



136 MEANS OF RELIGIOUS IMPROVEMENT. 

V. The Lord's Supper. 

This interesting rite is the last in the series 
of Christian means which I shall mention. 
It is that to which the young disciple is 
accustomed to look forward with intense feel- 
ing, and the arrival at which constitutes an 
era in his progress fondly expected and 
fondly remembered. Sometimes it appears 
to be regarded too much as the limit of 
improvement, the goal of the course, the prize 
of the victory, after which the believer is to 
sit down and enjoy in security the attainments 
he has made, exempt from the necessity of 
further watchfulness and combat. It is 
owing, in no small degree, to the prevalence 
of this opinion, that so many make no actual 
or perceptible progress after their arrival at 
the Lord's table. They esteem it less as the 
means and incitement of greater improvement, 
than as the end and completion of the work 
they had undertaken; not so much a refresh-, 
ment to their weakness in the trying journey 
of duty, as the festival which rewards its 
termination. Be on your guard against this 
erroneous feeling. Habitually remember, that 
your vigilance and labor are to end only al 



the lord's supper. 137 

the grave ; that the fight lasts as long as life ; 
that the crown of the victor is Maid up in 
heaven ; ' and that whatever indulgences may 
be granted here, they are but as encour- 
agements to your perseverance and strength- 
ened to your weakness, designed to cheer 
and help you on your way ; not seasons of 
repose and enjoyment, but of recollection and 
preparation ; — so that they, in fact, form a part 
of that system of discipline, by which every 
thing below is made to try and prove the 
character of man. 

In this light you will view the peculiar 
ordinance of our faith, — as a privilege and 
indulgence, but also as a pledge and incite- 
ment to activity in duty. From the moment 
that it has been your purpose to become a 
follower of Christ, you have looked forward 
to this holy feast as something which it would 
make you but too blest to be permitted to 
partake. While occupied with other means 
of improvement, you have still felt that there 
was one thing lacking, and have perhaps 
been stimulated to a more earnest diligence 
in the use of them, by the reflection that they 
would prepare you for this ultimate and 
12* v 



138 MEANS OF RELIGIOUS IMPROVEMENT, 

superior enjoyment. Such is the very com- 
mon experience of the growing Christian ; 
and it is my wish to show you how that may 
be rendered a blessing in the enjoyment, 
which has been so eagerly desired in the 
anticipation. 

Settle it distinctly in your mind, that this 
ordinance, so far as relates to your concern in 
it, has a twofold purpose; first, to express 
and manifest your faith in Christ, and your 
allegiance and attachment to him ; secondly, 
to aid and strengthen you in a faithful 
adherence to his religion. That is to say, in 
other words, by your attendance at the Lord's 
table, you declare yourself to be, from principle 
and affection, a Christian ; and you seek to 
revive and confirm the sentiments, purposes, 
and habits, which belong to that character. 
These are the two objects which the ordi- 
nance is intended to accomplish, and which 
you are to have constantly in view. 

By considering the first of these, you will 
be enabled to decide how soon, and at what 
period, you ought to offer yourself for this 
celebration. Can you say, that you are in 
principle and affection a follower of Jesus 



the lord's supper. 139 

Christ? This is the question you are to put 
to yourself; not whether you have been such 
for a long time; not how great attainments 
you have made ; — but are you such at heart, 
and are you resolved perseveringly to main- 
tain this character? ' Look at this ques- 
tion. Ponder its meaning. Put it to your- 
self faithfully. Do nothing with haste or 
rashness, but proceed calmly and deliberate- 
ly. Then, if you can conscientiously reply 
in the affirmative, if you have already showed 
so much constancy in your efforts, that you 
may rationally hope to persevere, you may 
make your profession before men, and take 
the promised blessing. Hasty minds have 
sometimes rushed forward too soon, and only 
exposed their own instability, and brought dis- 
honor on their calling. Be not, therefore, has- 
ty. But timid men have sometimes hesitated 
too long ; have delayed till their ardor cooled, 
till they fancied they could stand and flourish 
without any further help, till death or age over- 
took them, and they were called to meet their 
Lord without having confessed him before men. 
Beware, therefore, that you delay not too long. 
To deliberate whether we shall observe a com- 



140 MEANS OF RELIGIOUS IMPROVEMENT. 

mandment, after our minds are impressed 
with a sense of the duty of doing so, is to 
break it. To postpone our acceptance of a 
privilege, when we feel that it is such, and 
know that it is offered to ourselves, is to re- 
fuse it, and to forego its benefits. He who 
believes, and is resolved to live and die in his 
belief, has a right to this ordinance ; he is 
under his Master's orders to attend it; and 
he should reflect, that obedience, to be ac- 
ceptable, should be prompt. 

As soon, therefore, as your attention to re- 
ligious things has sufficiently prepared and 
settled your mind, you will solemnly acknowl- 
edge it by this outward testimonial of faith. 
So far the ordinance looks to the past. It 
also looks to the future ; and you will, sec- 
ondly, as I said, use it as a salutary means of 
religious growth, appointed to this end, and 
singularly suited to accomplish it. You will 
regard it, and attend it, as one of the appropri- 
ate instruments by which you are to keep 
alive, and carry on to perfection, that principle 
of spiritual life, which has bad birth within 
you, and which has made a certain progress 
toward maturity. 



THE LORDS SUPPER. 141 

It is a means singularly fitted to accomplish 
this end, because it is an ordinance at once 
so affecting and so comprehensive : — affecting, 
by bringing directly before us, in one collect- 
ed view, the circumstances under which it 
was instituted, and the purposes of Heaven 
with which it is connected ; — the trials and 
sufferings of the Son of man, the meekness 
and sublimity of his submission, the tender- 
ness and pathos of his last conversation and 
prayers, the desertion in which he was left by 
his disciples, the insults to which he was ex- 
posed from his enemies, the torture in which 
he died, submissive and forgiving; and all 
this, that he might seal the truth which he had 
taught, and provide salvation for miserable 
men. It is true that all this is familiar to the 
mind, and often brought before it in other acts 
of worship. But here it forms the express 
subject of contemplation and prayer. Here it 
is set before us more evidently and vividly by 
the circumstances, the forms, the apparatus of 
the occasion. It is made the special object 
of regard, and therefore is suited, in a pecu- 
liar manner, to affect us. 

It has another advantage. It is as compre- 



142 MEANS OF RELIGIOUS IMPROVEMENT. 

hensive as it is affecting. In its primitive in- 
tention, in its simple purpose, it is, as it was 
designated by our Lord himself, a commemo- 
ration of him : ' This do in remembrance of 
me.' And what is it to remember Jesus, 
rightly and effectually, but to call to mind all 
that he was, and did, and suffered, in his 
own person; and all the blessings, advantages, 
and hopes, which have resulted to us, and 
shall forever result, from his ministry and 
death ? These are all connected together by 
one close and indissoluble chain. They are 
united, in inseparable union, with his name 
and memory. When we reflect on our Mas- 
ter, our minds cannot pause till they have 
gone over all his example in life and death, 
have recalled his character and instructions, 
have pondered on the excellence and beauty 
of his truths, the glory of his promises, the 
bliss of Ills inheritance. Thence they will pass 
on to survey the effects which he has already 
produced on the condition and character of the 
world, to observe the contrast of our present 
enviable lot with what it would have been if 
he had not established his reign among men, 
end to contemplate the spreading prospects of 



the lord's supper. 143 

human felicity in the wider extension of his 
kingdom ; — the removal of error, corruption, 
ignorance, and sin, and the establishment of 
universal truth, righteousness, knowledge, and 
peace. Thence they will pass on to a future 
world : to the unseen and unimaginable joys 
of a life in which purity, love, and happiness, 
shall be infinite in measure, and infinite in 
duration, and where man, made the compan- 
ion of angels, freed from sin and from suffer- 
ing, shall dwell in the light of God's presence 
without end. We shall recollect, that for all 
our hope of acceptance to that world, and of 
pardon for the sins which have made us un- 
worthy of it ; for all those gifts of light and 
strength which shall prepare us for it ; for all 
the tranquillity, consolation, and support, 
which, in weakness, sorrow, and death, the 
knowledge of our immortality imparts, — for 
these we are indebted to Jesus Christ , 
without whom we should still have remained 
ignorant on this first of subjects, and uncon- 
soled in the severest trials. So that, in one 
word, there is no topic of religion, none of 
thanksgiving or prayer, none of penitence, 
gratitude or hope, none of present or of 



144 MEANS OF RELIGIOUS IMPROVEMENT , 

future felicity for ourselves or for others, 
which is not called up to the mind by the 
faithful use of this simple but expressive 
service. As the believer sits at his Master's 
table, he seems to himself to be sitting in his 
presence; together with his image, every 
blessing of his faith and hope rises brightly to 
view; and his heart burns within him, as he 
contemplates the grace with which his 
unworthy spirit has been visited, and realizes 
the hope that he shall partake of the glories 
which his Lord revealed. As he looks unto 
him, ' the Author and Finisher of our faith, 
who, for the joy set before him, endured the 
cross, despising the shame/ he grows strong 
to do and endure likewise ; animated by the 
hope set before him of entering into the joy to 
which his crucified Master has ascended. 

Is it not, then, evident, that you have here a 
means of singular power, to keep the atten- 
tion awake and the heart right ; and that your 
spirit can hardly slumber, if you faithfully 
open it to the influences of this observance ? 
Remember, however, that itr value will de- 
pend on yourself, and the manner in which 
you engage in it. It has no mystical charm, 



the lord's supper. 145 

no secret and magic power, to bless you 
against your will. Every thing depends on 
your own sincerity and devotion. Earnestly 
desire, and pray, and endeavor that it may 
do you good, and it will do you good. Go to 
it heedless, thoughtless, and unprepared, and 
it will prove to you an idle and inefficient 
ceremony. The great cause why so many 
derive no improvement from the repeated per- 
formance of the duty, is, that they attend it 
with inconsideration and coldness, and with 
little purpose or desire of being affected by it. 
Let your attendance be in a different state 
of mind. Engage resolutely in tjie suitable 
meditations ; examine yourself before and 
after ; come to the celebration with a temper 
prepared for worship, and leave it with one 
prepared for duty. 

There is a peculiar feature in the mode 
of administering this ordinance, distinguish- 
ing it from all other acts of social worship, 
to which it may be well to advert. I refer to 
the pauses during its administration, when 
each worshipper is left to himself, to follow 
his own reflections, and make his own pray- 
ers There are thus united in the occasion 
13 



146 MEANS OF RELIGIOUS IMPROVEMENT. 

some of the advantages both of social and 
of private devotion. When you have been 
excited by the voice of the minister and of 
general prayer, you are permitted to retire, 
without interference, into your own heart, to 
repeat the petitions and confessions with a 
more close reference to your own case, and to 
mate yourself certain that you understand 
and feel the service in which you are engaged. 
You may find a great advantage in these si- 
lent intervals. In all other instances of social 
worship, your attention is required, without 
ceasing, to some external process ; and you 
pass on from one part of the service to 
another, with little opportunity to reflect, as 
you proceed, or to pursue the suggestions 
which are made, in the manner that your own 
peculiar condition may require. But in this, 
the leisure is given for thoroughly applying 
to your own personal state all that has met 
your ear, and for pouring out freely the devo- 
tional feeling which has been excited. And if 
there be any thing favorable to the soul, as 
multitudes of devout persons have insisted, in 
occasions for contemplative worship in the 
presence of other men, then, in this respect, the 



the lord's supper. 147 

Lord's supper may claim a superiority over 
every other season of social devotion. 

Many persons, I am aware, find it difficult 
so to control their minds as to render these 
silent moments profitable. But to such per- 
sons the very difficulty becomes a useful disci- 
pline, and the occasion should be valued for 
the sake of it. To aid them in the use of it, 
and to prevent its running to waste in misera- 
ble listlessness and idle rovings of the mind, 
it might be well that they should have with 
them some suitable little book of meditations 
and reflections, which they may quietly consult 
in their seats as guides to thought and devo- 
tion. 

In a word, prepare your mind beforehand, 
be faithful during the celebration, review it. 
when it is past ; and you will never have rea- 
son to complain of its inefficacy as a means 
of religious improvement. You may not enjoy 
high and mystical raptures; you may be some- 
times overtaken with languor and coldness; 
but as long as, in sincerity, and from motives 
of duty, you present yourself in this way be- 
fore the Lord, you will find that there is re- 
freshment and encouragement in the act 



148 MEANS OF RELIGIOUS IMPROVEMENT. 

You will have in it satisfaction, if not ecstasy; 
and will never doubt that something of the 
steadfastness of your principle, and of the 
vigor of your hope, is owing to this affectionate 
application of the life, example and sacrifice 
of the Saviour, in the way of his appoint- 
ment. 



THE DISCIPLINE OF LIFE. J 49 



CHAPTER V. 

THE RELIGIOUS DISCIPLINE OF LIFE. 

Next to the means to be employed in the 
promotion of personal religion, we must at- 
tend to the oversight and direction of the 
character in general. The means of which 
we have taken notice, consist of a series of 
special and stated exercises, whose object is 
to prepare us for the right conduct of actual 
life ; and they may be compared to the daily 
drill of the soldier, by which he is made 
ready for the field. Watchfulness and self- 
discipline belong to all times and occasions, 
and may be compared to the actual use which 
the soldier makes of his preparation in the 
camp and the field. The Christian is en- 
gaged occasionally in prayer, meditation, 
study, and the communion ; he must watch 
and govern himself always. To the former 
duties he devotes certain appropriate seasons; 
the latter belong to every season and all hours. 
The former constitute his preparation for the 
13* 



150 THE DISCIPLINE OF LIFE. 

Christian life; the latter constitute its pervad 
ing spirit. No punctuality or fidelity in the 
former proves a man to be religious without 
the latter. And therefore, having stated the 
manner in which these means are to be used, 
it is necessary for us to go on and show how 
they are to affect the whole conduct of life, and 
make it an exercise of perpetual self-discipline. 
Why you are to be always watchful over 
yourself, is easily perceived. In this world 
of sensible objects and temporal pursuits, you 
are constantly exposed to have your thoughts 
absorbed by surrounding things, and with- 
drawn from the spiritual objects to which 
they should be primarily attached. You are 
incited to forget them, to slight them, to 
counteract them. The engagements, the 
anxiety, hurry, and pleasures of life, thrust 
them from your thoughts ; and desires, pro- 
pensities, passions, are excited quite inconsist- 
ent with the calm and heavenward affections 
of Christ. All these tendencies in your situa- 
tion are to be resisted. You are to be ever on 
the alert, that mey may not lead you into any 
course of thought or of action at variance 
with the principles to which you are pledged 



THE DISCIPLINE OF LIFE. 151 

as a believer in Jesus Christ, and which form 
your delight in your hours of devotional enjoy- 
ment. Such inconsistency may be sometimes 
witnessed. But what can be more melan- 
choly than to see a rational being, deeply 
convinced of the truths of religion, in his 
sober hours of thought dwelling on them with 
fond and delighted contemplation, excited by 
them to a devout ardor of communion with 
God, and sometimes to a glow of holy rapture 
which seems to belong to a superior nature ; — 
and then sinking into worldliness, governing 
himself in ordinary life by selfish maxims of 
temporal interest, obeying the passions and 
propensities of his animal being, and, in a 
word, living precisely as he would do, did he 
believe that there is nothing higher or better 
than this poor life ? I ask, what can be more 
sad or pitiable than such a spectacle ? Let it 
be your earnest care to guard against so de- 
plorable an inconsistency. Now, while your 
mind is warm with its early interest in divine 
things, — now, while they press upon you in 
all their freshness, — now, take heed that you 
do not concentrate that interest, and use all 
its strength, in the luxury of devout musing 



152 THE DISCIPLINE OF LIFE. 

or the excitements of study and devotion ; but 
carry it into your whole life ; let it be always 
present to you in all you do, in all you say; 
let it form your habitual state of feeling, your 
. customary frame of mind and temper. Make 
it your constant study that nothing shall be 
inconsistent with it, but every thing partake 
of its power. This is the watchfulness in 
which you must live. This is the purpose 
for which you must exercise over yourself 
an unremitting and ever-wakeful discipline; 
seeing to it, like some magistrate over a city, 
or some commander over an army, that all 
your thoughts, dispositions, words .and actions 
be subject to the law of God, and the princi- 
ples of the Christian faith. 

Thus it is plain, that your chief business, 
as well as your great trial, in forming a 
Christian character, lies in the ordinary tenor 
of life. The world is the theatre on which 
you are to prove yourself a Christian. It is 
in the occurrences of every day, in the rela- 
tions of every hour, in your affairs, in your 
family, in your conversation with those around 
you, in your treatment of them, and your 
reception of their treatment; — it is in these 



THE DISCIPLINE OP LIFE. 153 

that you are to cultivate and perfect the 
character of a child of God. It is in these 
that your passions are exercised, and your 
government of them proved; in these that 
your command over that unruly member, the 
tongue, is made known ; in these that temp- 
tations to wrong doing and evil speaking 
beset you, and that you are to apply your 
religious principle in resisting them. In 
these it is, consequently, that you discover 
whether your principle is real and genuine, or 
whether it lies only in feeling and in words. 
In the quiet of your chamber, in the devout 
solitude of your closet, when the world is shut 
out, and your solemnized spirit feels itself 
alone with God, you may be so exalted by 
communion with Heaven, and by meditation 
on heavenly truth, that all things earthly shall 
seem worthless and paltry, and every desire be 
set upon things above. How often, at such 
times, does it appear as if the world had no 
longer any charms, as if its pleasures and 
pomp could never again entice or delight us! 
Our souls are above them. We have no more 
relish for them than have the angels. -And 
if this were all which is required of us, if 
o 



154 THE DISCIPLINE OF LIFE 

nothing opposed to this delightful frame of 
mind were ever to cross our path, the Chris- 
tian prize would be already won. But, alas ! 
m the closet, and in the third heaven of 
contemplation, we can live but a small portion 
of the time. We must come down from the 
mount. We must enter the crowd and 
distractions of common life. We must en- 
gage in common and secular affairs. And 
there, how much do we encounter that is 
opposed to the calm and serene spirit of our 
contemplative hours! how much to irritate 
and disturb our quiet self-possession ! how 
much to drive from our thoughts the subjects 
on which we have been musing ! how much 
to revive the relish for transient pleasures and 
worldly enjoyments, and a love for the things 
which minister gratification to pride and to 
the senses! In the midst of these things, 
dangerous, enticing, seductive, you are to 
live and walk unchanged, unseduced, unde- 
filed ; your heart true to its Master, your 
spirit firm in its allegiance to God, and your 
soul as truly devout and humble as when 
worshipping at the altar. Is this easy? I 
will not ask ; but is it not your great, your 



THE DISCIPLINE OF LIFE. 155 

paramount, trial? Is it not here, that the 
very battle of your soul's salvation is to be 
fought ? Is not this, as I said, the very field 
of actual and decisive war, the very seat of the 
fearful and final campaign ? And the prayers 
and studies, and observances of your more 
special devotion, are they not the buckling 
on of the armor, and the refreshing and 
preparing of the soul for its real combat ? 

You perceive, then, how the Christian life 
must consist in watchfulness and self-disci- 
pline; how it must be your great business 
to keep a faithful guard over yourself, that, 
both in mind and conduct, nothing may exist 
contrary to the spirit and precepts of Jesus 
Christ. 

First of all, this guard is to be placed upon 
the Mind. It is an intellectual, internal, 
spiritual discipline; the oversight and man- 
agement of the thoughts and affections. 

There is a superficial religion, not unpopu- 
lar in the world, which is limited to the out- 
ward conduct and the external relations of 
life; which is made to consist exclusively in 
rectitude of behavior and uprightness of 
dealing. Into this error you are not likely to 



156 THE DISCIPLINE OF LIFE. 

fall, if you learn your religion from the New 
Testament ; and I should not have thought it 
needful to warn you against it, had it not been 
so prevalent. Nothing but its commonness 
could render it credible, that men, who pos- 
sess the Scriptures, and fancy they understand 
them, or who are simply capable of obser- 
vation on the nature of man and of happiness, 
should persuade themselves that the character 
which God demands and will bless, is inde- 
pendent of the state of the mind and the frame 
of the affections. Is it not the mind which 
constitutes the man ? Is it not the mind 
which gives its moral complexion to the con- 
duct? Is it not certain, that the same 
conduct which we applaud as indicating an 
upright character, we should disapprove and 
condemn, on discovering that it proceeded 
from base and improper motives? So that 
even men judge of character rather by the 
principle which actuates, than by the actions 
themselves. How much more completely 
would this be the case, if, instead of being 
obliged to infer the principle from the act, 
they could discern the principle itself as it 
lies in the mind of the agent! Who, in that 



THE DISCIPLINE OF LIFE. 157 

case, would ever judge a man by his actions 
alone? Who would not always decide re- 
specting his character from the principles and 
motives which guided him, — his thoughts, 
dispositions, and habitual temper ? And thus 
it is that the Deity judges and decides. He 
looks not on the outward appearance, but on 
the heart. Consequently, how obvious is the 
position, that, in seeking the Christian char- 
acter, the first and most diligent watch must 
be placed over the inner man ! ' Keep thy 
heart with all diligence ; for out of it are the 
issues of life.' 

This implies several things. First, a care- 
ful guard over the Thoughts. It is in the 
heedless disregard of the thoughts that 
corruption often takes its rise. They are 
suffered to wander without restraint, to attach 
themselves without check to any objects 
which attract the senses, or are suggested in 
conversation, and to rove uncontrolled from 
one end of the world to another. How many 
hours are thus wasted in unprofitable musing, 
which leaves no impression behind ! How 
much of life is made an absolute blank ! 
Worse still, how often .do sinful fancies, sen- 
14 



158 THE DISCIPLINE OF LIFE. 

sual images, unlawful desires, take advantag 
of this negligence to insinuate themselves into 
the mind, and make to themselves a home 
there, polluting the chambers of the soul, 
and rendering purity unwelcome! This is 
the beginning of evil with many a one, who, 
from this want of vigilance over the course 
of his thoughts, has surrendered himself to 
frivolity and sensuality, without being aware 
that he was in peril. Thoughtlessness, mere 
thoughtlessness, has left the door open to sin, 
and the same thoughtlessness prevents the 
detection of the intruder. 

You may fancy that your present prefer- 
ence for profitable subjects of thought, is such 
that you are in no danger from this source. 
But beware of trusting to any present dispo- 
sition. If you become confident, you will 
fall ; and the rather, because the beginning 
of this peril is so subtle and sly. Believe that 
the danger is real and imminent, or it is 
scarcely possible that you should not suffer 
from it. You may not, indeed, fall a victim to 
irregular desires and hurtful immoralities; 
but the habit of unwatched thought will 
weaken your control over your mind, will 



THE DISCIPLINE OF LIFE. 159 

diminish your power of self-government, and 
rob you of that vigorous self-possession, alive 
to every occasion, and prompt at every call, 
which forms the decision of character that 
ought to belong to him who professes to 
follow the energetic principles of Christian 
morality. So that, if you would be saved from 
an unbecoming weakness of mind, and its 
possible, not to say probable, consequences, 
ungoverned desires and passions, keep a 
guard upon your thoughts. Let your morn- 
ing and evening prayer be, that you may live 
thoughtfully. And when, in the business of 
the day, your hands are occupied, but your 
mind free to think, keep yourself attentive 
to your thoughts. Inquire frequently how 
they are engaged. Direct them to useful and 
innocent subjects. Think over the books 
you have been reading ; rehearse to yourself 
the knowledge you have gained ; call up the 
sermons you have heard ; repeat the passages 
of scripture you know. By methods like 
these, take care that even your empty hours 
minister to your improvement. Paley has 
truly observed, that every man has some 
favorite subject, to which his mind spontane 



160 THE DISCIPLINE OF LIFE. 

ously turns at every interval of leisure ; and 
that with the devout man the subject is God. 
Hence the watching over your thoughts 
furnishes you with a ready test of your reli- 
gious condition ; it exposes to you the first 
and faintest symptoms of religious decline, 
and enables you to apply an immediate 
remedy. 

If the thoughts, which may be expressed in 
words, are to be thus guarded, the Temper 
and Feelings, which are often so indefinable 
in language, require a no less anxious guar- 
dianship. In the perplexities and trials of 
daily life, in the conflict with the various tem- 
pers and frequently perverse dispositions of 
those around us, in the little crosses, the petty 
disappointments, the trifling ills which are our 
perpetual lot, we are exposed to lose that calm 
equanimity of mind which the Christian 
shoula habitually possess. We are liable to 
be ruffled and irritated, and to feel and display 
another spirit than that gentleness which 
'bears all things and is not easily provoked.' 
The selfishness of some, the obstinacy of oth- 
er?, the pride of our neighbor, the heedlessness 
of our children, and the unfaithfulness of our 



THE DISCIPLINE OF LIFE. 1C1 

dependents, tire our patience, and disturb our 
self-possession ; while bodily infirmity and dis- 
ordered nerves magnify insignificant inconve- 
niences into serious evils, and irritate to peev- 
ishness and discontent the temper which duty 
calls to cheerfulness and submission. Some 
are blessed with a native quietness of temper- 
ament which hardly feels these hourly vexa- 
tions. But of some they form the great trial, 
and peculiar cross; they can bear any thing 
better. And to all persons they constitute an 
exposure full of hazard, and demanding cau- 
tious vigilance. The very spirit and essen- 
tial traits of the Christian character require 
watchfulness against them, and imply conquest 
over them. The humility, meekness, forbear- 
ance, gentleness, and love of peace ; the long- 
suffering, the patience, the serenity, which 
form so lovely a combination, which portray a 
character that no one can fail to admire and 
love ; — these are to be maintained only by 
much and persevering watchfulness. 

Without this, the most equable disposition 

by nature may become irritable and unhappy. 

With it, under the authority and guidance of 

Christian faith, the most unfortunate natural 

14* p 



162 TIIE DISCIPLINE OF LIFE. 

temper is subdued to the gentleness of the 
lamb. Without it, the internal condition of 
man is restless, rebellious, full of wretched- 
ness, having no peace in itself, and enjoying 
nothing around. With it, the aspect of the 
world becomes changed ; every thing is bear- 
able, if not pleasant ; the sweet light which 
beams within, shines on all without, making 
pleasant the aspect of all men, and smoothing 
the roughnesses of all affairs. Who does not 
know how much the events of life take their 
hue from the state of the disposition ? To the 
proud, suspicious, and jealous, every man 
seems an intruder, every gesture an insult, 
and every event a cause of vexation and wrath. 
To the self-governed and amiable, every thing 
is tolerable, and he feels nothing of the incon- 
veniences which make the misery of the oth- 
er. One's happiness, therefore, as well as 
duty, requires this control of the disposition. 
And when the Saviour pronounced his bene- 
diction on the pure, peaceful, humble-minded, 
and meek, he taught, not only the great re- 
quisite of his spiritual kingdom, but the great 
secret of human felicity. 

When the frame of your mind is thus a con- 



THE DISCIPLINE OF LIFE. 163 

Btanl care, you will find little difficulty in the 
control of the Appetites. These things are 
connected together; and, an ascendency over 
the former being secured, the subjection of 
the latter easily follows. But take good heed 
that it does follow. Do not be thoughtless 
about it, because you fancy that it will of 
course accompany a regulated mind. Other- 
wise it is here that corruption may begin. 
The enemy will enter at any place, however 
improbable, which shall be left unguarded. 
And it only needs that the body become dis- 
ordered through the immoderate indulgence 
of the appetites, to raise a rebellion through- 
out the whole moral system ; or, to speak 
more plainly, this indulgence will create \ 
cloudiness of mind, indisposition to thought, $ 
activity, and duty, irritability of temper, slug- 
gishness of devotional feeling, and at length a 
general spiritual lethargy. There can be little 
doubt, that much of our dullness of apprehen- 
sion and deadness of feeling on spiritual topics, 
as well as our strange sensibility to minor tri- L 
als, is owing to a derangement of the animal 
economy, which is again owing to want of 
moderation in gratifying our animal desires. 



) 



164 THE DISCIPLINE OF LIFE. 

Hence there was some reason in the absti« 
nence and fastings of religious men in ancient 
times; and if we valued sufficiently, wnat they 
perhaps valued superstitiously, — serenity and 
brightness of mind, an equal temper, and a 
perpetual aptitude for spiritual contemplation, — 
we should imitate them more, if not in their 
fastings, yet certainly in their temperance. 
At any rate, ' let your moderation be known 
unto all men.' For temperance is not only 
the observance of an express injunction, but is 
essential to that quietness and self-control 
which should mark the religious character. 

The next exercise of self-discipline will be 
in Conversation. Conversation, while it is a 
chief source of improvement and pleasure, is 
also a scene of peculiar trial, and the occasion 
of much sin. One might suppose that few 
persons ever dream that they are accountable 
for what passes in conversation, although 
there is no point of ordinary life which Jesus 
and the Apostles have more frequently and 
sternly put under the control of religious prin- 
ciple. Their language is strikingly urgent on 
this head ; and yet, so little scrupulousness is 
there among men, even religious men, that it 



I 



THE DISCIPLINE OF LIFE lti5 

would seem as if they felt ashamed to be care- 
ful in their talk. A thoroughly well-governed 
speech is so rare, that we still say, in the words 
of James, ' If any man offend not in word, the 
same is a perfect man.' 

Do not allow yourself to be off your guard I 
in this respect. Make it a part of your busi- 1 
ness, by a cautious prudence, to have your 
speech consistent with the rest of your charac- 
ter. Do not flatter yourself that your thoughts 
are under due control, your desires properly 
regulated, or your dispositions subject as they J 
should be to Christian principle, if your inter- / 
course with others consists mainly of frivolous f 
gossip, impertinent anecdotes, speculations on 
the character and affairs of your neighbors, 
the repetition of former conversations, or a 
discussion of the current petty scandal of so- 
ciety ; much less, if you allow yourself in 
careless exaggeration on all these points, and 
that grievous inattention to exact truth which L 
is apt to attend the statements of those whose j 
conversation is made up of these materials. 
Give no countenance to this lamentable depar- 
ture from charity and veracity, which it is 
mortifying to observe commonly marks the 



166 THE DISCIPLINE OF LIFE. 

every-day gossip of the world. Let precision 
^ in every statement distinguish what you say, 
J remembering that a little lie, or a little unchar 
\ itableness, is no better than a little theft. Be 
slow to speak those reports to another's disad- 
J vantage, which find so ready a circulation and 
i are so eagerly believed, though every day's ex- 
perience shows us that a large proportion of 
them are unfounded and false. In a word, 
be convinced that levity, uncharitableness, and 
falsehood, are as truly immoral and irreligious 
in the common intercourse of life, as on its 
more solemn occasions ; that idle and injuri- 
ous words make a part of man's responsible 
character, as really as blasphemy and idolatry ; 
and that ' if any man seem to be religious, 
and bridle not his tongue, that man's religion 
is vain.' 

1 A word spoken in season, how good it is!' 
Why should you not do all in your power to 
elevate the tone of conversation, and render 
the intercourse of man with man more ra- 
tional and profitable ? Let your example of 
cheerful, innocent, blameless words, in which 
neither folly nor austerity shall find place, ex- 
hibit the uprightness and purity of a mind 



THE DISCIPLINE OF LIFE. 167 

controlled by habitual principle, and be a 
recommendation of the religion you profess. 
Let the authority of that faith to which you 
subject every other department of your charac- 
ter, be extended to those moments, not the 
least important, in which you exercise the pe- 
culiar capacity of a rational being in the 
interchange of thought. Never let it be said 
of your tongue, which Watts has truly called 
/ the glory of our frame/ that with it you bless 
God, and at the same time make its habitual 
carelessness a curse to men, who are formed 
in the similitude of God. 

The influence of the principle which rules 
within, should thus be seen in all your deport- 
ment and intercourse, on every occasion and 
in every relation. Your outward life should 
be but the manifestation and expression of the 
temper which prevails within, the acting-out 
of the sentiments which abide there; so that 
all who see you may understand, without your 
saying it in words, how supreme with you is 
the authority of conscience, how reverent your 
attachment to truth, how sacred your adher- 
ence to duty ; how full of good-will to men, 
and how devoutly submissive to God, the 



168 THE DISCIPLINE OF LIFE. 

habitual tenor of your mind. Your spontane- 
ous, unconstrained action, flowing without effort 
from your feelings, amid the events of every 
day, should be the unavoidable expression ol 
a spirit imbued with, high and heavenward 
desires ; so that, as in the case of the Apostles, 
those who saw them ' took knowledge of them 
that they had been with Jesus/ it may in like 
manner be obvious that you have learned of 
that holy Teacher. And this may be without 
any obtrusive display on your part, without 
asking for observation, without either saying 
or hinting, ' Come, see my zeal for the Lord.' 
The reign of a good principle in the soul car- 
ries its own evidence in the life, just as that of 
a good government is visible on the face of 
society. A man of a disinterested and pious 
mind bears the signature of it in his whole 
deportment. His Lord's mark is on his fore- 
head. We may say of his inward principle, 
which an Apostle has called * Christ formed 
within us/ as was said of Christ himself dur- 
ing his beneficent ministry ; — It * cannot be 
hid.' There is an atmosphere of excellence 
about such a man, which gives savor of his 
goodness to all who approach, and through 



THE DISCIPLINE OB LIFE. 169 

which the internal light of his soul beams out 
upon all observers. Consequently, if you al- 
low yourself in a deportment inconsistent with 
Christian uprightness, propriety, and charity, 
you are guilty of bringing contradiction and 
disgrace on the principles which you profess ; 
you expose yourself to the charge of hypocrit- 
ically maintaining truths to which you do not 
conform yourself. You dishonor your religion 
by causing it to appear unequal to that domin- 
ion over the human character which it claims 
to exert. All men know that, if ' the salvation 
reigned within/ it would regulate the move- 
ments of the life as surely as the internal mo- 
tions of the watch. aj;e indicated on its face; 
if the hands point wrong, they know, without 
looking further, that there is disorder within. 
That disorder they will attribute either to the 
incapacity of the principle, or to your unfaithful- 
ness in applying it. But, what is of far great- 
er importance, the holy and unerring judg- 
ment of God will ascribe it to the single cause 
of your own unfaithfulness; and for all your 
wanderings from Christian constancy, and al) 
the consequent dishonor to the Christian 
15 



170 THE DISCIPLINE OF LIFE. 

name, you must bear the shame and reproach 
in the final day of account. 

You perceive how urgent is the call for per- 
petual watchfulness and rigid self-discipline. 
It is not easy, with much intentional guard 
over yourself, to keep the spirit habitually 
right in this giddy and tempting world ; and it 
is equally difficult to maintain a perfect coinci- 
dence between the principle within and the 
deportment of daily life. Oftentimes, in the 
emergencies and hurry of business, pleasure, 
and society, where many things concur to 
drown the voice of the spirit within, we find 
the lower propensities of our nature gaining an 
ascendency, and the law in our members ris- 
ing in rebellion against the law in our mind. 
? The things that we would, we do not, and 
the things that we would not, those we do ;' 
and sense and passion triumph for the moment 
over reason and faith. * The flesh lusteth 
against the spirit, and the spirit against the 
flesh, and these are contrary the one to the 
other/ And how shall we gain the victory in 
this perpetual contest ? * Through our Lord 
Jesus Christ/ says the Apostle; and the 



THE DISCIPLINE OF LIFE. 1.71 

means thereto are found in his injunction, 
1 Watch and pray, that ye enter not into 
temptation.' Vigilance over every hour and 
in every engagement, carrying into them the 
shield of faith and the whole armor of God ; 
and prayer, without ceasing, that your soul may 
be strong to wield them ; — these will secure to 
you the victory. Sometimes you will find 
yourself in perplexities and straits, sometimes 
faltering and irresolute; but never forsaken 
or cast down, never exposed to temptation 
which you are unable to bear, or from which 
there is no way of escape. You may ' do all 
things through Christ who strengtheneth you.' 

I have thus spoken of that religious disci- 
pline of daily life, in which the Christian 
character is formed and tried. It will be suf- 
ficient to add, in conclusion, that your great 
concern must be with two things, — your prin- 
ciples and your habits. 

First, you must constantly have an eye to 
your Principles. Take care that they be kept 
pure, and that you abide by them. They 
have been well compared to the compass of 
the ship, on which if the helmsman keeps a 
faithful eye, and resolutely steers by it in 



172 THE DISCIPLINE OF LIFE. 

spite of the opposition of winds and WE7es, he 
will find the way to his port ; but by heedless 
inattention to it, he is sure to go astray, and be 
blown whither he would not. Be assured that 
it is only by adherence to principle, in reso- 
lute defiance of inclination, opposition, present 
interest, and worldly solicitation, that you 
can ensure the steady progress of your soul, 
and its final arrival in heaven. Neglect it, 
and you are at the mercy of circumstances, 
tossed helpless on the waters of chance, expos- 
ed to the buffetings of temptation without the 
power of resistance, and a sure prey of the 
destroyer. You must find your safety in the 
strength of your principle ; and that strength 
lies in the original power of conscience, and 
the added authority of the divine word. Here- 
in is the * still small voice* of Heaven ; and he 
that will ' cover his face' from the world, and 
obediently listen to it, may become morally 
omnipotent. 

Secondly, have an eye to your Habits, 
Add to the authority of principle the vigor and 
steadfastness of confirmed habit, and your re- 
ligious character become? almost impregnable 
to assault. It is in no danger of overthrow, 



THE DISCIPLINE OF LIFE. 173 

except from the most cunning assailants in a 
season of your most culpable negligence. 
What wisdom and kindness has the Creator 
displayed in our constitution, that we are able 
to rear around our virtue the strong bulwark 
of habit ! It is a defence of the weakest 
spirit against the strongest trial. Through 
the power of habits early formed, how many 
have stood in exposed places, and been unaf- 
fected by solicitations to sin, beneath which 
others have fallen, who trusted to their good 
purposes, but who had never confirmed and in- 
vigorated them in action ! How often, for ex- 
ample, has the young man from a retired 
situation, — educated in the bosom of a vir- 
tuous family, and under the eye of a watchful 
father, thence sent forth to the new scenes of 
a city life, under the protection of good princi- 
ples and a sincere purpose to do well, — been 
found weak and wanting in the exposure ; and 
been carried away headlong by the tide of 
temptation, because his early habits were suit- 
ed only for seclusion, and his principles were 
guarded by none which could secure them 
against the novel assaults that were made upon 
them ! While, on the other hand, young men 



174 THE DISCIPLINE OF LIFE. 

brought up in the midst of these solicitations 
to sin, with far less inculcation of principle, are 
oftentimes enabled, through the mere strength 
which habit imparts, to resist them all, and 
live in the midst of them as if they were not. 

It cannot be necessary to multiply exam 
pies. You well know what a slave man is to 
his habitual indulgences, and how the custom- 
ary routine of his life and methods of employ- 
ment tyrannize over him, and how frequently 
one strives in vain to free himself from their 
dominion. The old proverb is every day 
verified before you, of the skin of the Ethio- 
pian and the spots of the leopard. But, if 
thus powerful for evil, habit is no less powerful 
for good. If in some cases it be stronger than 
principle, and defy all the expostulations of 
religion, even when the miserable man is con- 
vinced that his safety lies in breaking from it; 
then, when enlisted as the ally of principle, 
when coupled with faith, and made the fellow- 
worker of piety, how unspeakable may be its 
aid toward the security and permanence of 
virtue ! 

Take heed therefore to your habits. Allow 
yourself to form none but such as are 



THE DISCIPLINE OF LIFE. 175 

innocent, and such as may help your efforts 
to do well. In the arrangement of your 
business, in the methods of your household 
and family, in the disposal of your time, in 
the choice, seasons, and mode of your recrea- 
tion, in your love of company, and your se- 
lection of books, — in these preserve a simple 
and blameless taste. Do not allow any of 
them to be such as shall offer an obstacle to 
serious thought, and induce a state of feeling 
indisposed io religious exercises. Especially 
do not allow them so to enter the frame and 
texture of your life, that every effort of virtue 
and devotion shall be a pitched battle with 
some cherished inclination, or sturdy habit 
This is to increase most unwisely and need- 
lessly the trials and perils of a religious 
course. It is to raise up for yourself obstacles 
and difficulties beyond those which properly 
belong to your situation. Rather, therefore, 
arrange every thing in your customary pur- 
suits and indulgences to favor the grand end 
of your being ; so that every act of piety and 
faith shall be coincident with it ; so that little 
or no effort shall be required to maintain the 
steady order of daily duty ; and, instead of an 



176 THE DISCIPLINE OF LIFE. 

opposition, a struggle, a contest, whenever 
principle asserts its claims, you shall find the 
ready consent and hearty cooperation of all the 
habitual preferences, tastes, and occupations, 
of your life. He in whom this is so, is the 
happy man. He is the consistent man. He 
is the man to be congratulated, to be ad- 
mired, to be imitated. Universal harmony 
reigns within him ; no oppositions, no jarring 
contentions, mar his peace. With him, the 
flesh and the spirit are no longer contrary the 
one to the other. His duty and his inclina- 
tion are one. There is no dispute between 
what he ought to do ; and what he wishes to 
do. But, with one consenting voice, heart 
and life move on harmoniously, accustomed to 
and loving the same things. To him the 
yoke is indeed easy, and the burden light. 
To him heaven is already begun ; and when 
at last he shall be welcomed to the joy of his 
Lord, it will be to a joy which his regulated 
spirit has already tasted in the labors and 
pleasures of obedience below. 



PROGRESS 



CHRISTIAN LIFE 



ADVERTISEMENT. 



At the period when Mr. Ware's health 
began irrecoverably to fail, and just before 
he was obliged to give up all occupation, he 
was devoting his hours of leisure to the prep- 
aration of a sequel to his work on the For- 
mation of the Christian Character, which he 
designed to entitle " Progress of the Chris- 
tian Life." Several chapters only were fin- 
ished. They are too valuable to be lost, 
and are here published in the hope that they 
may be useful. The reader will form by 
them an idea of what the sequel would have 
been if its author had lived to finish it. 

C. R. 



AUTHOR'S PREFACE 



The following pages are designed as a 
sequel to the little work on the Formation 
of the Christian Character, and are supposed 
to be addressed to the same persons. When 
one has adopted the Christian faith as his 
rule of life, and begun in earnest his religious 
existence, it is still but the commencement 
of a career in which an indefinite progress is 
to be made, and which is to continue forever. 
As long as man is imperfect, there is room 
for improvement. As long as he is in the 
flesh, there is occasion for watchfulness and 
struggling against temptation. There is need 
that his principles become more and more 
fixed, his conscience more and more enlight- 



8 author's preface. 

ened and controlling, his passions more thor- 
oughly obedient to the law of righteousness, 
and his whole temper and demeanor more 
steadfastly conformed to the example of 
Christ. In a word, he is to grow in grace. 
Advancement is his duty, perfection his aim. 
It is with regard to this duty of religious 
progress that I propose to offer a few hints. 
There are some errors respecting it prevalent 
among believers, which I would first attempt 
to rectify ; and then I would explain its true 
nature and character, remove discourage- 
ments, and show the means and steps by 
which it should proceed, and how actual 
success is to be ascertained. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER 1. paob 

Errors respecting the duty of religious prog- 
ress noticed and corrected — especially the 
error that the Christian life, having been 
begun, is accomplished, 11 

CHAPTER II. 
Errors noticed and corrected — especially the 
error that the Christian life is not to be taken 
up expressly — is not to have a marked com- 
mencement, 27 

CHAPTER III. 
Errors noticed and corrected — especially the 
error of those who fancy that the Christian 
life may be sustained without the use of 
means, 39 

CHAPTER IV. 

The young Christian put on his guard against 
the hinderance to progress which arises from 
disappointment respecting the enjoyment of 
a religious life, 52 



10 CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER V. PAGB . 

Considerations designed to assist the Christian 
in the successful use of the means and 
methods of religious progress, 65 

CHAPTER VI. 
Maxims on which the expectation of religious 
progress is to be built, 78 



N. B. The following titles of additional chapters or 
sections are given in Mr. Ware's manuscript :— 

Hinder ances. How Progress manifests itself, and is 
to be ascertained. Progress in Knowledge, in Self-gov- 
ernment, in Spirituality of Temper, in Conscientiousness } 
in Disinterestedness, in Power to resist Temptation, In 
what sense Perfection is to be expected, fyc. fyc. 



PROGRESS 



CHRISTIAN LIFE. 



CHAPTER I, 

ERRORS RESPECTING THE DUTY OF RELIGIOUS 
PROGRESS NOTICED AND CORRECTED ES- 
PECIALLY THE ERROR THAT THE CHRIS- 
TIAN LIFE, HAVING BEEN BEGUN, IS AC- 
COMPLISHED. 

Nothing can be plainer than that the 
Christian character is a thing to be acquired 
and to be improved; yet it is evident that 
many do not so regard it. If we may judge 
from their conduct, the number is not small 
of those who esteem it something which 
belongs to them just as the body does, and 
to be kept alive and in health just like that, 



12 PROGRESS OF THE 

by living along from day to day, as the cir- 
cumstances of each day may suggest, but 
not to be the subject of any special regard. 
But as to being every day better than the 
day before, as to being more humble and 
charitable this year than they were last, it 
does not enter their mind, it makes no part 
of their plan. They have been Christians, 
they say, as long as they can remember ; they 
always believed in the gospel, and meant to 
do their duty. But they do not know more 
about the history and foundation, the nature 
and purposes, of their religion, nor are they 
in any respect more devoted. Indeed, when 
one thinks seriously on the subject, it is a 
matter of amazement to him to observe how 
stationary good men are, and how quietly 
they content themselves with being so. 

It is not so in other matters. We look 
around us on the community, and we see it 
in a state of commotion and advancement. 
Its prosperity is a wonder to us, and that 
prosperity is progress. Every one is pushing 
forward. Every one is eager and panting for 
success. Our young men rise step by step ; 
they are discontented if they find it other- 



CHRISTIAN LIFE. 13 

wise. Those who began life with nothing 
are seen in a few years comfortably living 
with a family around them, — then entering 
a larger dwelling, supporting a more exten- 
sive establishment, and in various expenses 
evincing the advancement they have made. 
This is common. But meantime — even if 
they account themselves Christians, and re- 
member that they have an eternity as well 
as a family to provide for — they have not 
dreamed of exhibiting any proportionate ad- 
vancement of character ; it has not occurred 
to them that their piety should have grown 
with their estate; that their charities should 
have been as much greater than formerly as 
their income has become larger; that, as 
they have been rising in the world, they 
should have risen also toward heaven. In 
the eye of the world, they are better dressed 
and better lodged, and they move in a more 
fashionable and intellectual circle; but in 
the eye of God, in their preparation for 
heaven, they are just where they were. They 
have contrived to give the soul just food 
enough to keep it of the same stature — not 
considering that it was to grow as well as the 
2 



14 PROGRESS OF THE 

body — not considering, indeed, that this 
eager attention to worldly good, and rapid 
growth in earthly prosperity, have very prob- 
ably stunted the growth of their characters. 

How salutary might it prove to every one 
whom Providence has blessed with an in- 
crease of goods, if, at every enlargement of 
his style of living, he should devote one day 
to searching into his spiritual progress, and 
resolve never to erect a new house, or intro- 
duce a higher indulgence to his domestic 
economy, until he could honestly say, that 
he was as much improved in character as in 
fortune ! 

But, alas! this is far from being the way of 
the world. They are satisfied to seem to 
themselves no worse than they were ; — if 
they deeply examined themselves, they might 
discover that they are, in fact, much worse. 

Amid this universal and earnest struggle 
for the outside life, the inner life is neglected ; 
and very good men are entirely content to be 
no better, who could ill brook to be no 
richer. 

Certainly this indicates a false idea of the 
true object of life, and a very imperfect ao 



CHRISTIAN LIFE. 15 

quaintance with that religion which they pro- 
fess to have taken for their guide. I do not 
treat the question in its reference to mere 
men of the world. On their principles they 
are right. With a worldly man, character is 
of very little consequence. If he be not dis- 
honest, so as to be in danger of the law, — 
if he keep a decent reputation for fairneo. 
and the social virtues, so as not to hinder his 
success by becoming obnoxious to others, — 
what more can he need ? His business is to 
make his fortune and enjoy himself more and 
more every year ; and this he can do perfectly 
well without being a better man. This, 
therefore, need be no part of his concern. 
But with those who profess to look beyond 
the world, to whom the favor of God is of 
some consequence, as well as the opinion of 
men, and who soberly believe that virtue is 
better than wealth, — with such as I am now 
addressing, — it should be the chief concern. 
Is it possible that they can have adopted 
Christ as their Master, and taken his religion 
as the great guide and blessing of their souls, 
knowing themselves to be immortal, and yet 
be satisfied to see their earthly condition pros- 



16 PROGRESS OF THE 

perous while there are no signs of their 
souls' prosperity? Surely the last must be 
their great anxiety and care, or they are 
strangely false to their principles. There is 
no incompatibility between the two ; both 
may advance together ; but to strive only for 
the earthly is treachery to their principles. 
^ias ! then, how many such traitors are 
there ! 

But there is another class. All do not, 
even in this prosperous community, succeed 
in their anxious efforts to advance themselves 
in the world. Many make no progress. 
They gain no wealth, they never enlarge their 
means of living and enjoyment, they live on 
as they began. Perhaps they are content 
with their lot. Many, it is well known, are 
perfectly so. They acquiesce in the allot- 
ment of Providence, and quietly sit down 
where God has appointed them. But many 
more have tried to rise, and in vain. Are 
they satisfied then ? Do they content them- 
selves ? Do they make no effort further ? 
Do they feel no regret, mortification, and 
longing? Surely not so. Waking and dream- 
ing, they are haunted by the restless desire 



CHRISTIAN LIFE. 17 

and the unquenched hope of reinstating their 
fortunes. And yet, though they know that 
their souls are equally far from prosperity, 
and that they have made no improvement in 
religious knowledge and virtue, it does not 
make them uneasy; they are perfectly will- 
ing it should be so. They are quite content 
to find themselves no better Christians ; but 
they cannot bear to find themselves no more 
wealthy. 

It was a beautiful wish of the disciple 
whom Jesus loved, when writing to a dear 
friend, " that he might be in health and pros- 
per even as his soul prospered. 1 * I fear it 
would be thought' a strange wish now, even 
amongst those who esteem themselves very 
good disciples. They would not understand 
how the prosperity of the soul is the first 
thing. Many, it is to be feared, do not even 
place it second. Business, money-vgetting, is 
first ; their family, second ; religion is post- 
poned to the third place, at least, and very 
little honored in that, if we may judge by its 
advancement in comparison with that of the 
other two. 

There are undoubtedly other classes to be 
2* 



18 PROGRESS OF THE 

found, besides those whom I have now named. 
They need not be described. They leave 
but a small number to be found scattered 
among us, here and there, as we look around, 
whose business, aim, object, is the growth of 
their character, who live for the sake of the 
soul, and who evidently, markedly, become 
better men as they advance in life. We 
would not be cynical in our estimate, but 
none can look around on society, Christian 
society, — recollecting with what capacities 
for goodness men have been endowed, and 
what inducements to progress toward per- 
fection are always before them, — without a 
feeling of amazement, mortification, and 
alarm, at observing how few are growing, or 
striving to grow, in the virtues of the Chris- 
tian life. So rare are such instances, that 
they are looked on, and spoken of, as bright 
exceptions; and a measure of goodness which 
ought to be that of every man, nay, which all 
acknowledge to be still far short of what the 
Christian should be, is described, praised, 
and held forth to imitation as something ex- 
traordinary — as, indeed, beyond what men 
in general are expected to attain. " We 



CHRISTIAN LIFE. 19 

are not to expect to find others as good as 
he." 

This defective tone and condition of society 
is unquestionably a great hinderance to those 
who are young in religion. It presents to 
them, on their first entrance to a new princi- 
ple, instead of examples that stimulate to 
effort and excellence, and raise still higher 
their impressions of the purity and spirituality 
of Christian attainment, specimens of lag- 
ging, sluggish, moderate virtue, which coun- 
tenance them in the most indolent exertions 
for improvement. As they look forward with 
the glowing mind of youth and the first beat- 
ings of awakened faith, the Christian life 
looks to them not only all light and glorious, 
but of a strict and holy austerity, and a scru- 
pulous purity which has no part or lot with 
the ordinary follies of humanity — elevated 
above the world by a taste which has no 
pleasure in its perishing pursuits, and a habit 
of exalted contemplation which dwells amid 
things unseen and eternal. They begin the 
race, therefore, with feelings of high aspira- 
tion. They take their place among the dis- 
ciples with a romantic and earnest expecta- 



20 PROGRESS OP THE 

tion of finding in those privileged persons 
something, they know not what, of a celes- 
tial temper and beauty : they expect to be 
incited, cheered, instructed, by the very con- 
tact, and to find in the atmosphere in which 
they dwell the radiance and perfume of 
heaven. And if they could find it so, they 
would keep alive their own ardor, they would 
persevere to realize their own exalted con- 
ceptions. But they find it otherwise. The 
image which they had conceived in their own 
minds of what the Christian man ought to be — 
an image whose features were all drawn from 
the life and teaching of the Great Master — 
is not at all realized in the world. Nobody 
acts up to it. Nobody seems to have it in 
mind. The common standard is wholly below 
it ; and these young beginners find them- 
selves alone, with an idea and purpose of a 
perfection which the more experienced smile 
upon as the extravagant dream of youth, which 
a few more days will show them to be imprac- 
ticable in such a world as this. Thus the 
actual state of religious feeling chills the 
early blossoms of their religious characters ; 
they find that much less than they had 



CHRISTIAN LIFE. 21 

imagined is thought sufficient by the older 
and wiser disciples, who must know much 
better than themselves ; that it is by no means 
requisite to follow Christ so nearly, or wor- 
ship God so exclusively, as they had fancied ; 
they discover that, in fact, they have made as 
great attainments already as the world would 
bear; to proceed further would be only to 
become singular : so they change their pur- 
pose, and remain where they are ; unwilling 
to be better than others; satisfied with a 
measure which seems to satisfy others, and 
glad to learn that the great work they had 
undertaken is so early completed. And thus 
each generation does its utmost to repress 
the aspiration of the next, and to keep down 
the standard of virtuous attainment. 

So powerful is the example of the society 
around us, and such the influence of prevail- 
ing notions to modify our own, that few have 
courage or perseverance to follow the inward 
suggestion which urges them to rise higher. 
So that a distinguished minister gave it as 
his earnest advice to a young friend, not to 
allow himself to be ordained as pastor of any 
church in which the standard of life was not 



22 PROGRESS OF THE 

very strict and high; because, as he urged, 
all experience shows how almost impossible 
it is for a young minister to escape con- 
forming himself to the sentiment around him, 
and being shaped more or less by the popular 
mould. If it be thus to be apprehended in 
the case of one all whose temporal interests 
urge him, no less than his eternal, to rise to 
the mark, how much more must it be so 
with ordinary men, who are less protected by 
the circumstances of their position, and the 
daily duties of their calling ! 

It is, therefore, evidently, one of the first 
duties of the young Christian to settle it in 
his mind that he has only commenced a work 
which is to be going on as long as he shall 
exist. Every thing in the example and ex- 
perience of others around him proves how 
necessary this is, for it proves how easily he 
may be made to forget it. 

There are also some mistaken notions re- 
specting religion itself which may lead to the 
same error ; the idea, namely, which so readily 
finds a welcome in the mind which is glow- 
ing with the first happiness of its early faith, 
that its glow cannot fade away; tbut things 



CHRISTIAN LIFE. 23 

will always appear to the soul just as they do 
at that divine moment; that the. new taste 
is fixed, and cannot be changed ; that it will 
take care of itself. Hazardous and unfounded 
as such a feeling is, it is yet very natural. It 
belongs to all strong emotion to have faith in 
its own perpetuity. The affections always 
are confident that they never shall change ; 
and we always fancy that the grief, or love, 
or indignation, which fills our bosoms now, 
can never fade from them. When, therefore, 
we are awake to the vivid consciousness of 
our spiritual relations, and are overwhelmed 
with those various and mingling emotions 
that take possession of the excited spirit, and 
blend there in all thai is awful, tender, joyous, 
and serene — when we are confident that 
now, at last, we are tasting the highest gratifi- 
cation of which human nature is capable, 
that now, at last, we are in the state in 
which man ought to be, — a state in which 
things appear as they are, in their true rela- 
tions and proportions, and the common things 
of the world take rank among the insignifi- 
cant and uninteresting, — we cannot doubt 
that these, the truest, will be the lasting feel- 
ings ; we cannot conceive it possible that 



24 PROGRESS OF THE 

any thing on earth, should ever have charm 
enough to entice from this state ; that any of 
the things which we now know to be inferior 
should ever be able to withdraw us from what 
we now know to be supreme. This is the 
hearty, honest, deeply-seated conviction within 
us. This is the conviction which occasions 
the well-known confidence and presumption 
of young converts, which prompts to their 
proverbial forwardness — a confidence and 
forwardness often attributed to unworthy mo- 
tives, and spoken of to their discredit. It 
may not be creditable to them ; yet it argues 
nothing worse, perhaps, than self-ignorance. 
They do not know the evanescent character 
of the feelings, the deceitfulness of the heart ; 
therefore they give way to it ; they trust 
themselves ; they spread all their sails to the 
wind, as if it would never change ; they fancy 
themselves established, and act warmly and 
boldly, as if established. But this glow is 
necessarily transient, like all vehement feel- 
ing ; and when it has passed away, they have 
no abiding principle of life to take its place 
and keep the work in progress. Other 
feelings rise up in the midst of the world; 
the brightness of the spiritual light fades from 



CHRISTIAN LIFE. 25 

before the eye of the soul, and there is no 
advancement to a higher perfection. 

Let no one, therefore, from the strength 
and security of his first affections, allow him- 
self to rest, as if the work were done. It is 
but begun. Let him settle within himself, 
deeply and sternly, the persuasion that it is 
to be going on while life lasts. For want of 
this it is that the love of so many has waxed 
cold, and that so many who put their hand 
to the plough have turned back. If you 
would persevere, you must understand, at the 
outset, the necessity of perseverance. You 
must start with the conviction that you begin 
a perpetual progress. 

For which reason, instead of looking at 
the state of society, instead of conforming 
yourself to the model of those with whom 
you live, study into the nature and capacity 
of your soul, your destiny, and your respon- 
sibility ; imbue your mind with the spirit of 
your immortal faith, and the influence of 
the character of your holy Master ; and from 
the promptings of a soul thus filled and 
kindled, act out Christianity for yourself; — 
not as others do, nor as others expect you 
3 



26 PROGRESS OF THE 

to do, but as this state of mind impels you. 
There is no true and safe course but to be 
obedient to these suggestions of a mind 
which has faithfully studied for itself into the 
doctrine and temper of the divine life. These 
suggestions are to it as the instinct of its 
immortal nature — as unerring, as safe, as the 
instincts of the lower orders of beings. Man's 
bodily instincts are as nothing, for his bodily 
interests are of little moment, and in pursuing 
them he has no need of an infallible guide. 
But the interests of his undying soul are of 
infinite consequence : in his search for them 
he needs an infallible guide ; and that guide 
he has in the promptings of his own mind, 
whenever he has cultivated it with the deep 
study of truth and faith, and steeped it by 
faithful contemplation in the secrets of divine 
love and infinite purity, and brought it into 
intimate communion with the Holy Spirit of 
God. If you have truly acquainted yourself 
with your Master and his revelation, — if you 
have entered into their spirit with your whole 
soul, — then act yourself, freely, boldly, and 
you will not know what it is to stop short 
This very action will be progress. 



CHRISTIAN LIFE 27 



CHAPTER IL 

ERRORS NOTICED AND CORRECTED ESPE- 
CIALLY THE ERROR THAT THE CHRISTIAN 
LIFE IS NOT TO BE TAKEN UP EXPRESSLY 
IS NOT TO HAVE A MARKED COM- 
MENCEMENT. 

Besides the causes of error which are 
hinted at in the preceding chapter, there are 
others still more worthy of consideration. 
Of these I do not know that there is any 
more common or more detrimental than that 
which is the subject of this chapter. It is 
an error which arises naturally from the cir- 
cumstances of birth and education in a Chris- 
tian land, and from the idea that under such 
circumstances the Christian character grows 
up of course, just as the social does, and per- 
haps as part of the social. It differs from 
that before mentioned in this, that, while that 
supposed the Christian character something 
to be formed by a certain process in a certain 
time, — to be done by the job and finished 



28 PROGRESS OF THE 

at once, — this supposes that it is never any 
thing to be taken up as a distinct subject of 
attention, or to be made an express concern ; 
but is to be left to take care of itself, under 
those influences to which all are subjected, 
and beneath which it will grow up spontane- 
ously. This is a common error; it infects 
the great mass of nominal Christians; it 
deceives and paralyzes even conscientious 
men, and keeps them from all progress by 
persuading them that the soul will grow of 
itself, as the body does. 

This error is so widely connected with 
misapprehensions respecting the origin and 
nature of the religious life, that it cannot be 
fully developed without a wide discussion. 
But it is of less importance thoroughly to do 
this, than to exhibit the error itself. It has 
no doubt been fostered by the manner in 
which the axiom has been received, that all 
safe progress is gradual, that whatever is 
violent and sudden is unnatural and unsafe 
— an axiom true in itself, when rightly un- 
derstood, but very falsely applied in the pres- 
ent instance. Is not the progress of the 
day gradual, it is asked, and the progress 



CHRISTIAN LIFE. 29 

of the seasons imperceptible ? Does not the 
seed germinate and spring forth without our 
being able to detect or trace it ; growing 
night and day, we know not how; first the 
blade, then the ear, and then the full corn in 
the ear? Are not all the beneficent oper- 
ations of Providence and nature thus? — 
never rapid, vehement, instantaneous, but 
always gentle, quiet, gradual? And, satis- 
fied with this analogy, we sit down to wait 
the advancement of our character, just as we 
wait the progress of the season ; as if we had 
only to sit and wait ; to do nothing to hasten 
or retard it; as if its course was onward as 
inevitably as fate. We do not perceive that 
we advance ; but no matter : who sees the 
sun advance on the dial-plate ? We have no 
consciousness of being in motion ; but, then, 
who sees the motion of the planets, or the 
increase of the blade of corn? We are 
making no efforts : certainly not; for a growth, 
to be healthy, must not be forced. Who 
would have the sickly and short-lived prod- 
uce of the hotbed ? 

But even if we chose to follow strictly the 
analogy between the insensible universe and 
3* 



30 PROGRESS OF THE 

the living moral soul, this mode of reasoning 
is unjustifiable. If we do not see the day 
come forward with our eyes, we perceive 
clearly, after an interval, that it has come 
forward; and though our keenest sight does 
not detect the growth of the plant, we yet do 
see that it has grown ; and we should be ex- 
tremely unhappy if the opening dawn should 
become stationary, or the grain and fruit 
should pause in the process of ripening. 
But those of whom I speak feel no uneasiness 
at the perception that their characters have 
become stationary; they are not troubled 
when, at the greatest intervals, they still find 
that they have gained nothing. All is made 
quiet in their conscience at once by the sov- 
ereign pacifier, "O, we are not to expect 
great results: improvement must be gradual; 
the more gradual, the more sure." 

Has not this lamentable result been en- 
couraged in many minds by the expression 
of a very eminent writer of great influence ? 
— "that our Christian congregations contain 
two classes: to the one must be preached 
conversion, to the other improvement M — an 
altogether just remark, which commends itself 



CHRISTIAN LIFE. 31 

at once to every man's approbation. Bat 
how easily misapplied ! Every one, on hear- 
ing it, bethinks himself, of which class is he? 
" I do not need conversion ; I have been re- 
ligiously educated ; always attended church, 
always read my Bible, always accounted my- 
self a Christian; I only need improvement. 
My case, then, is safe; I am on the right 
side, and of course it will be for my interest 
to improve ; in fact, considering the advan- 
tages amidst which I live, I cannot fail to 
improve : 'tis not in the nature of man to 
live under such excellent preaching and with 
such facilities for reading and worship, and 
yet not improve." Thus perfectly satisfied 
with his situation and with himself, he folds 
his arms and does nothing. The current 
floats him along, and he does not dream that 
it can be to any other than the true haven. 

If I should address such persons, I would 
ask them if they do not presume too much, 
when they thus take it for granted that they 
do not need conversion. Does it by any 
means follow, because they have been edu- 
cated under Christian institutions, that they 
have availed themselves of them, and become 



32 PROGRESS OF THE 

Christians ? Because they have been taught 
to read the Bible from their childhood, does 
it follow that the spirit of that holy book has 
formed their characters? Certainly this can- 
not be pretended. One may be brought up 
in the very recesses of the sanctuary, and yet 
be as corrupt as an abandoned heathen ; may 
believe that Christianity is from heaven, as 
the Hindoo believes that his ancestral faith 
is divine, and be ; n heart addicted to all that 
is unchristian. History and observation tell 
of but too many who have contended for the 
faith, and yet who had checked no desire, 
controlled no passion, at its bidding. It is 
not, therefore, impossible that many decent 
men may have been brought up amongst us 
to honor Christianity, who yet are far from 
being imbued with its spirit ; that many may 
have a respect for its precepts and a jealous 
attachment to its forms, and yet be governed 
at heart by principles which it would disap- 
prove. Doubtless there are many such : they 
are willing to count themselves its friends; 
they are proud to number themselves among 
its supporters ; and, being thus Christians 
by birth, claim the right to be esteemed 



CHRISTIAN LIFE. 33 

Christians indeed. But in order to be Chris- 
tians indeed, they must be religious men; 
and religious men they are not : they need 
to be converted to the influence of the faith 
they honor ; from the worldliness which gov- 
erns them, to the personal experience of the 
power of the truth, which as yet is a dead 
letter to them. They think they need only 
to go on : alas ! they have not yet begun. 
They have the very first step to take. They 
have the commencement to make. 

Is it not to be feared that many are living 
and dying amongst us in this very condition ? 
Is there not a quieting and'deceptive influence 
in much of what passes for religious senti- 
ment amongst us, producing the feeling that 
we have all begun — we have all entered the 
path of life — we have only to go on ? But it 
is not true that all have begun. How, then, 
can it be otherwise than dangerous to entreat 
all to go on 1 How can they advance if they 
have not commenced? There can be no 
true and satisfactory progress unless we are 
sure that we have made a beginning, and a 
right beginning. 

Now, the great error is, that men are con- 



34 PROGRESS OF THE 

tent without any proof that they have made 
a beginning. They are willing to assume 
this important and all-essential fact as a thing 
of course. 

They were born in a Christian land ; they 
believe Christianity divine; they are pretty 
good men ; they trust, through God's mercy, 
they shall be saved. But this does not prove 
that they have in any proper sense com- 
menced the Christian life. What are their 
ruling principles ? On what rest their affec 
tions ? Where are their motives, desires, and 
to what are their self-sacrifices offered ? Get 
an honest reply to these questions, and you 
find that the world still rules them. A faith 
in things spiritual, and a supreme surrender 
to God, they as yet know not. They have a 
beginning yet to make, 

I hold it to be clear that no man can have 
done so important a thing as to resolutely 
take up the Christian law for his guide, 
without a consciousness afterwards that he 
has at some time distinctly done so. Jt is a 
very momentous act in a man's lite when lie 
assumes the obligations and responsibilities 
of the word of Christ, and says, " For this 



CHRISTIAN LIFE. 35 

Master I live and die." He must know that 
he has done it. It is not a thing to be taken 
for granted — to be supposed. The bear- 
ings of this faith on his daily life in a thou- 
sand ways — its applications to his temper, 
his thoughts, his will, his habits of living and 
speech — are too direct and palpable to leave 
any doubt on the subject. The struggle 
between this spirit of allegiance to conscience 
and faith, and the fleshly appetites and worldly 
principles ; the trials, and falls, and recov- 
eries, and shame, and joy, and all the vari- 
ous tumults of mind and heart, which the 
Christian pilgrimage implies, are all too dis- 
tinct, too deeply felt, too strongly marked, 
to be forgotten, or to allow room for conjec- 
ture, supposition, or any testimony but the 
heart's own consciousness. Many, very many, 
have been so situated in early life, and have 
been so formed by influences exclusively of 
the world, that they can at no time come to 
a Christian life without most conspicuous 
and absolute change — a disruption of former 
ties, a more or less painful abandonment of 
former habits, a strange and entire alteration 
of the favorite and ruling desires. Educated 



36 PROGRESS OF THE 

as most persons are, it is impossible that they 
should otherwise arrive at the Christian life; 
and this change is an era to be remembered. 
It leaves deep marks on the history. And 
as for others, who have been favored with a 
more propitious lot, and whose minds have 
received the sanctifying influence of truth 
from the cradle, drinking in divine knowl- 
edge with their daily discipline, and imbued 
with the temper of Heaven through the power 
of the society and teaching of their early 
guides, — they, too, cannot have confirmed 
their early impressions excepting through 
efforts and struggles ; they must evidently 
know ; it cannot be left to them to take for 
granted. They may have the most infallible 
proof that they have actually made a begin- 
ning. 

But as for the great class of those who 
can produce neither of these proofs, how can 
they proceed 1 They are grossly self-de- 
ceived. Their trust and hope are altogether 
without foundation. 

No wonder that they are content without 
progress. After assuming, without evidence, 
that they are Christians, it is a small thing to 



CHRISTIAN LIFE. 37 

add the assumption that they move while they 
stand still. 

Here, therefore, I propose to my readers, 
that they institute a solemn and thorough 
self-examination. Let each inquire and know 
whether he is one of this very extensive class, 
who thus easily imagine themselves to be 
something when they are nothing. If he has 
never yet doubted on the subject, nor rigor- 
ously inquired, he has reason for apprehen- 
sion. Let him dwell no longer in uncer- 
tainty, or content himself with conjecture. 
Let him ascertain whether he has actually 
made a religious beginning. If not, let him 
waste no time in studying how to make ad- 
vancement. He has an earlier and more im- 
portant work — to remove away all the heavy 
rubbish which, through his self-deception and 
long blindness, has been accumulating about 
him, and lay in earnest the foundation of a 
hearty faith, and a holy, heavenly character. 
If he is not sure that he has already begun 
the Christian life, let him begin now, to-day, 
with a prayerful determination, with a de- 
voted purpose, with a heartfelt self-consecra- 
tion to God, and Christ, and duty. Let him 
4 



38 PROGRESS pF THE 

leave this great matter no longer in suspense, 
this most momentous question no longer open, 
but let him bring his real character and his 
hidden motives into the light — the clear 
light of truth — by taking devoutly and res- 
olutely the first grand step, by performing the 
initiatory act of intelligently, distinctly, and 
with a single heart, dedicating himself to 
the service of his heavenly Master. 



CHRISTIAN LIFE. 39 



CHAPTER III. 

ERRORS NOTICED AND CORRECTED ESPE- 
CIALLY THE ERROR OF THOSE WHO FANCY 
THAT THE CHRISTIAN LIFE MAY BE SUS- 
TAINED WITHOUT THE USE OF MEANS. 

I have endeavored to expose the mistake 
of those who dream that the religious life 
has no beginning. I now turn to those who 
fancy that it may be sustained and supported 
without the use of means. 

In stating their error thus, there is absurd- 
ity on its very face, so great that it may be 
supposed impossible for any one to maintain 
such a position. And perhaps to the full 
extent none will venture to maintain it in 
terms, though we certainly hear language 
which very nearly approaches the statement 
I have made, and daily witness conduct which 
is consistent with no other principle than 
that which such a statement involves. In 
fact, it is the tendency of the speculations 
and the praciice of the day to make light of 



40 PROGRESS OF THE 

forms, to undervalue modes of operation, to 
speak of times, persons, places, ceremonies, 
as unessential, material, instrumental, — as 
crutches for the lame, leading-strings for the 
weak, guides for babes, — quite necessary to 
those who are so far wedded to the body that 
it clogs and impedes their minds, but wholly 
unnecessary to the soul itself; in fact, as 
badges of an inferior condition, as marks of 
spiritual backwardness, as the remnants of 
an earthly dispensation, and relics of the 
infancy of our race, which are fast becom- 
ing unnecessary in this enlightened age, and 
which the truly enlightened had best dis- 
pense with at once. 

There is a good deal of loose thinking and 
talking of this sort. It is founded on a mis- 
apprehension of the real nature of the ad- 
vancement of man in the present world ; as 
if cultivation and religion were making an 
actual change, not in his condition and ad- 
vantages, but his very nature; relieving him 
of his dependence on the body, the senses, 
and the material world. Whereas, evidently, 
he must retain still his connection with them, 
his relation to there > and must be atlected by 



CHRISTIAN LIFE. 41 

them in his desires, appetites, habits, enjoy- 
ments, character — must act through them, 
and be acted on by them; and so long as 
this is so, it is perfectly impossible that he 
should be able to maintain a purely spiritual 
existence, or to advance his spiritual charac- 
ter, without aid From abroad. While this 
connection with the outward world perpet- 
ually operates on him to affect his temper 
and distract his affections, it is necessary to 
counteract it by agents and contrivances 
which also operate outwardly. While, every 
day, appetite must be indulged at stated hours, 
business done, and exciting thoughts, in- 
terests, and passions absorb his mind, he 
must every day have stated means of neutral- 
izing their engrossing and infecting power, 
or they will obtain the mastery. 

How it may be when the soul shall be sep- 
arated from its present connection with the 
body, we do not know. Perhaps then it may 
go on a course of holy progress without 
external aid, or stated help ; though the Scrip- 
tures give no representations which warrant 
us to decide peremptorily that it is so. Cer- 
tainly it is not so now ; and they who fancy 
4* 



42 PROGRESS OF THE 

it to be so, are taking the sure method to 
dwarf their own stature and chill their devout 
affections. 

There is, undoubtedly, a distinction to be 
made between religion and the means of reli- 
gion — a distinction, the want of attention to 
which has led to great abuses, and been the 
parent of fanaticism and superstition. Forms 
and ceremonies have been exaggerated into 
the essentials of faith; opinions have been 
made to take the place of character, and days 
and observances have usurped the respect 
which should have been paid to righteous- 
ness and true piety. In order to avoid this 
error of times past, it has become a favorite 
notion with many, that religion only, should 
have attention and honor — pure, unmixed, 
unaccompanied religion. They are to be- 
come religious ; that is the great end ; they 
are to form perfect characters. Religion does 
not consist in saying one's prayers, attending 
church, observing the Sabbath, sitting at the 
Lord's table, reading the Bible : these things 
are not religion. One may do all these, and 
yet not be religious — men have clone all, 
scrupulously, and yet been reprobates. These 



CHRISTIAN LIFE. 43 

are but the means ; and if one be but a reli- 
gious man at heart, it is of no consequence 
whether he scrupulously observe these means 
or not. Indeed, he had best avoid any ap- 
proach to a superstitious regard for them; it 
would belittle him ; it is best to have a great 
deal of freedom. One should not be a slave 
to certain hours; he can pray at any time; 
a prayer is just as acceptable at the work- 
bench, and in the street, as at the altar ; and 
every day ought to be a Sabbath; one day has 
no more real sacredness than another. There 
is great danger of mistaking the means for 
the end ; we will pursue the end only. 

Common as something like this may be in 
the thoughts of many and the practice of 
more, it is yet wholly indefensible as a mat- 
ter of reasoning, and utterly ruinous when 
applied to practice. Here and there a man 
may be found who can live on these princi- 
ples uninjured; but they are extraordinary 
men ; the great majority would infallibly be 
destroyed by them. 

They lead to a disregard of religious ser- 
vices, which will extend, in too many in- 
stances, to a disregard of religion itself, and will 



44 PROGRESS OP THE 

often inevitably cause the Christian character 
to fall into decay, because the props which 
are necessary to support it are removed. So 
serious an evil deserves to be carefully con- 
sidered. There can be little hope of general 
advancement or great attainment in religion, 
when such opinions are prevalent. 

Let it be considered, therefore, that al- 
though, abstractly and strictly speaking, there 
may be an essential distinction between an 
end to be gained and the means by which it 
is to be gained, for all practical purposes 
there is no difference whatever. If the result 
be desirable, and can be attained only through 
a certain process, that process is of precisely 
the same consequence as the result. If the 
affair be one of duty and obligation, the obli- 
gation to perform the process is as absolutely 
binding as the obligation to effect the result. 
If I desire to hold an eminent rank in society, 
if I wish to be a promoter of human good in 
an important profession, it is just as important 
that I should pass through the discipline of 
that preparatory education which fits for the 
profession, as it is that I should enter on that 
profession. My usefulness and eminence de- 



CHRISTIAN LIFE. 45 

pend equally upon both. It is not enough, 
in order to the arrival of a steamship at a 
distant city, that the crew be at their posts, 
the engineer at his wheel, and the machinery 
all in beautiful order ; the boiler must be 
filled and the fire kindled ; and he would be 
a stupid commander who should slight these 
because they are only means — who should 
say that his object was to arrive at the city, 
and he was not to be busying himself about 
these little preliminaries to progress. Yet it 
would be hard to understand how there is any 
less stupidity in those who fancy themselves 
able to arrive at heaven, while they slight the 
appointed means of proceeding thither as 
wholly secondary affairs. I ask, " Are you a 
student of the Scriptures? Do you daily and 
statedly pray ? Are you fond of frequenting 
occasions of religious worship ? " Your an- 
swer is, " O, no ! religion does not consist in 
these things. I am only careful about the 
great end ; that is all which I need to regard." 
That is to say, so long as you are resolved to 
arrive safely at the end of your journey, it is 
of no consequence whether the water, and 
the wood, and the fire, be applied to the 



46 PROGRESS OF THE 

boiler or not! "But," I add, "one would 
imagine that your own feelings would prompt 
you to join in these religious observances 
and acts — that your own religious state of 
mind and heart would lead you to take plea- 
sure in them." " Why, yes, sometimes, now 
and then ; and then it is well enough to at- 
tend and use them. But unless one happens 
to be disposed to engage in them, it is not 
worth while to do so. It is only the great 
end which I am anxious about." " And 
thus," I reply, " caring only for the aceom- 
plishment of your voyage, you have no rule 
but your inclinations to decide when you 
shall feed the fire which is to carry you on." 
One would be glad to ask of the great men 
who have blessed the world with their light 
and action in any department of usefulness — 
especially one would like to ask of the apos- 
tles and reformers — how this doctrine would 
have operated in their case, and where the 
world would have been if they had been be- 
guiled by it — if Paul, instead of his jour- 
neyings and toils that he might preach the 
gospel, and establish and organize churches, 
and so save men's souls and extend the king- 



CHRISTIAN LIFE. 47 

dom of Christ in the world, had thought within 
himself, " Preaching, and worship, and the 
Christian community, are only the means of 
salvation ; they are but secondary things in 
comparison with salvation : salvation, salva- 
tion, that is the great, prime, all-absorbing 
consideration; and why should I be wearing 
out my life on the mere means?" — or if 
Luther and the other men that have moved 
the world with their doctrine had sat silent 
on the happy suggestion that preaching is 
not religion — religion is the great thing to 
be regarded? And yet, where is the man 
who can show that it would have been more 
absurd in them thus to have forsaken the 
preaching of the gospel, and the gathering of 
assemblies, than it is in any private man to 
forsake the hearing of the word on the same 
pretence ? 

And yet there are men who practise and 
defend this unspeakable absurdity ! They 
think themselves good Christians, and yet 
waste the hours of the Sabbath, are slack in 
their attendance on public worship, almost 
strangers to the Bible, without worship in 
their families, and without stated prayer in 



48 PROGRESS OF THE 

their closets; and, if you expostulate with 
them, very soberly reply, that these things do 
not constitute religion; they care only for re- 
ligion itself. And thus there is not one of the 
means appointed for and essential to religious 
establishment and growth which is not put 
by on this plea. 

It is evident enough, I think, that these 
means, if not parts of religion, are yet essen- 
tial to it. But I go still farther. I ask if it 
be so unquestionable, as appears to be taken 
for granted, that they are not parts of religion. 
Is it so clear that the reading of the Scrip- 
tures, acts of devotion, and attendance on 
the ordinances, are not essentially, and in 
their own nature, parts of religion as well as 
means ? Let us look at this. What is reli- 
gion ? Strictly speaking, it is something in- 
visible, intangible, immaterial — which has 
no shape, and is not cognizable by any hu- 
man sense. Practically speaking, it is a cer- 
tain character — that state of mind, heart, 
and character, which become the relation in 
which a man stands to God. Now, I ask, 
what is that state of mind, heart, or character, 
without the expression of it ? Is not the ex- 



CHRISTIAN LIFE. 49 

pression of it, properly speaking, a part of it? 
Can we say that there is character where 
there is no manifestation of it ? If we were 
consulting philosophical exactness of terms 
perhaps this might be disputed ; but so far as 
regards real life and the common judgment 
of men, it is doubtless correct. We know 
nothing of real benevolence of heart, if in 
no way manifested — nothing of uprightness 
and strength of character — nothing of intel- 
lectual power — except so far as expressed; 
and this expression is always regarded as part 
of the character itself; it is the character 
acting. 

Now, religion is a certain state of mind, 
heart, and character; but if there be no man- 
ifestation of this state in action, neither the 
individual himself nor other men could be 
assured of its existence and reality. But what 
are the expressions, what the manifestations, 
of religion 1 The most natural, perhaps the 
most spontaneous, the most indubitable, is 
prayer. It is the expression of the religious 
heart to its God. It is the language of the 
devout mind. It is the action of the pious 
spirit. I cannot conceive, therefore, that any 
5 



50 PROGRESS OF THE 

one should esteem prayer simply a means of 
religion. It is a part of religion. It is an 
inalienable concomitant. And it is repre- 
sented, throughout the Scriptures, more fre- 
quently as an essential act of religion, — 
inseparable from and inherent in a devout 
character, — than as a means of increasing 
the devotional temper, or of spiritual im- 
provement. 

The same is true concerning the Chris- 
tian ordinances. To express faith and new- 
ness of spirit by baptism, and to commune 
with the Savior at his table, are in them- 
selves religious actions. To read the Scrip- 
tures, and devoutly meditate on the truth of 
God, and worship in his house, and listen to 
the preaching of his word, are religious acts, 
expressions of a religious character, no less 
than means of increasing in Christian knowl- 
edge and holiness. 

It is, therefore, far from true that, in neg- 
lecting religious observances, we merely post- 
pone the means to the end. They constitute, 
in their very nature, parts of that which we 
seek to achieve. They are natural expres- 
sions, manifestations, of the religious charac- 



CHRISTIAN LIFE. 51 

ter ; and one can hardly be authorized in 
imagining himself to possess that character, 
if it do not thus display itself. 

If it be still said that one may make his 
selection from these means, and use those 
which best suit his own case and satisfy his 
own want, it may be replied, Undoubtedly 
he may find greater edification in some than 
in others, and to such he may with peculiar 
interest apply. But he can hardly think him- 
self at liberty to slight any, so long as all 
have been appointed by God, and are regarded 
as part of man's service to him; so long, 
too, as each of them is only another mode of 
giving expression to that spirit which he pro- 
fesses to desire to cultivate, and which he 
ought to find pleasure in expressing. 

If these things be so, every man's duty be- 
comes plain, and he can live in neglect of it 
only at the hazard of a great absurdity, which 
casts his soul into fearful peril. 



62 PROGRESS OF THE 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE YOUNG CHRISTIAN PUT ON HIS GUARD 
AGAINST THE HINDERANCE TO PROGRESS 
WHICH ARISES FROM DISAPPOINTMENT RE- 
SPECTING THE ENJOYMENT OF A RELIGIOUS 
LIFE. 

Among the hinderances against which the 
young Christian may need to be put on his 
guard, we may mention, next, that arising 
from false expectations respecting the enjoy- 
ment of a religious life. The opening views 
of a religious existence are like those of 
youth, bright with vague anticipations of the 
future, full of gay dreams, romantic and vis- 
ionary expectations. It is the youth of the 
soul, excited, ardent, confident, and painting 
the future in colors too uniformly gorgeous to 
be true. Not that any extravagance of ex- 
pectation can exceed the actual happiness 
which the Christian realizes in his estab- 
lished faith. Young Christians do not, lor 
they cannot, expect too much; but they ex- 



CHRISTIAN LIFE. 53 

pect — as the Scripture says " they ask — 
amiss" They err as to the nature more than 
as to the degree of enjoyment. They look for 
it in excitement, in strong emotion, in ecstasy, 
in rapture. They expect to be forever in the 
same glowing frame of bliss in which they 
are now, while the subject is all new and their 
feelings all fresh. The scales have just fallen 
from their eyes, the light has broken in upon 
their souls for the first time, and the scene 
that bursts upon their view is that of Elysium. 
They have no idea that familiarity can ever 
render it less beautiful, or dull in any degree 
the emotion with which they gaze upon it. 
But it is a universal and inexorable law of 
nature, that familiarity tames the passion ate- 
ness with which any object is regarded. The 
excitement of feeling goes down. The ex- 
altation and frenzy of the mind subside. 
The pleasure may continue, but the rapture 
ceases. 

He, therefore, who proceeds to cultivate 
his religious nature under the expectation 
that it is to yield him a perpetual, sensible 
joy, is sure to be disappointed. It is not the 
nature of the mind to be capable of perpet- 
5* 



54 PROGRESS OP THE 

ual, unintermitted joy. In all cases in which 
the mind is wrought up to a high pitch of 
excitement, one of two consequences always 
results — either it becomes weary, and the in- 
terest of the subject is worn out by the in- 
tenseness of the action, — and this often 
happens in religion, where a most passionate 
devotion for a season ends in coldness, indif- 
ference, and worldliness, — or else, the excite- 
ment being modified and controlled by reason 
and principle, the mind settles down into a 
quiet, steadfast, gentle, and equable condi- 
tion, without ecstasy, but full of content. 
And this, too, is what we see in daily exam- 
ples of the judicious and confirmed believers. 
Many are made greatly unhappy, and fall 
into grievous despondency, for want of duly 
considering this. They find erelong that 
their frame of mind sinks. Not only have 
they no rapture, but they perceive with horror 
that occasionally even a lethargy of feeling 
comes over them, as if they had fairly ex- 
hausted the excitability of their mind. They 
read and pray with a calmness which fright- 
ens them — a calmness they in vain try to 
agitate ; and whereas they were shortly before 



CHRISTIAN LIFE. 55 

lifted to the third heavens with delight, they 
now stand unmoved, as if the very pulse of 
celestial life had stopped. The contrast ap- 
pals them. They fancy themselves deserted 
of God and all goodness. They feel them- 
selves abandoned and lost, and are ready to 
sink in consternation and despair. They had 
imagined, in their hours of exalted musing, 
that the love of the world was subdued ; that 
the power of its fascination was gone ; that 
its follies and lusts, its pride and pleasures, 
having been seen once in their true light, 
could never have charms for them again ; and 
that the sinful feelings they had formerly ex- 
cited could not be excited by them again. 
But, as they again move about in the actual 
scenes of the world, they find it far other- 
wise. The desires and appetites which they 
supposed to be dead, were only sleeping, and 
they suddenly wake. The passions and sel- 
fishness which they supposed subdued spring 
up vigorously, and would break their chains, 
and clamor for indulgence, as before, and, 
perhaps, in some unguarded moment, seize 
on their gratification. All this astonishes 
and alarms them. They were not prepared 



56 PROGRESS OF THE 

for it. It is wholly unexpected. They find 
themselves deceived. They know not how to 
meet it. They are miserable. Their life is 
wholly a different one from that which they 
proposed to themselves — a life of watching, 
self-denial, and anxiety, when they had been 
looking for nothing but peace and joy. They 
are disheartened, and perhaps abandon the 
path which promised them pleasantness and 
peace, but has yielded them weariness and 
pain. 

It becomes important, therefore, that the 
beginner should understand the nature both 
of Christian duty and of Christian happiness, 
that he may count the cost before he begins, 
and not fail through false and unreasonable 
expectations. 

Let him consider, then, that Christian duty 
is conformity to a law, and Christian happi- 
ness the result of that conformity. This law 
governs the affections, as well as the conduct; 
determines the whole state of mind and feel- 
ing, as well as of life; and it is only when 
mind and feeling are conformed to this law 
that the man is in the way of Christian duty, 
— only then, therefore, that he is to expect 



CHRISTIAN LIFE. 57 

happiness. And what happiness? That which 
belongs to the consciousness of having done 
duty ; that which grows out of and appertains 
to the state of mind which is attained ; — 
and that will be, of course, satisfaction, con- 
tentment, rather than ecstasy. The con- 
sciousness of being right, the assurance of 
the favor of God, — these, being abiding and 
habitual impressions on the mind, are likely 
to produce a calm peace, rather than a tu- 
multuous delight. 

Then it is to be considered, further, that 
religion operates on the human mind upon 
similar principles with other subjects, and fol- 
lows the laws and constitution of human na- 
ture. If, then, in respect to the question be- 
fore us, the analogy of the other affections 
shows the same result, we ought to be satis- 
fied. And undoubtedly it is so. The reli- 
gious affections are kindred to all the affec- 
tions. That love which is the essence of 
religion is the same love which exhibits itself 
in the various relations of man, and is the 
source of the purest and strongest joys of 
earth, as it is to be of those of heaven. How 
intense and fervent the love of a mother for 



58 PROGRESS OP THE 

her child ! What sacrifices will she make 
for it, what toils endure, and how readily 
does her heart flutter and her eye overflow ! 
Yet there are times when that strong affec- 
tion seems dead in her bosom, and we have 
often heard her say that it seemed to her as 
if she had no feeling, as if she were an un- 
natural creature, from whom all natural 
affection had departed. Yet, meantime, un- 
excited as she is, she goes resolutely on, 
discharging her maternal duties, till some oc- 
casion calls forth again the floods of tender- 
ness. She did not blame herself — we did 
not blame her — for that habitual tranquillity 
of feeling, for that temporary coldness; — 
far from it. The cares of a large family 
never could go on, if the parent were agitated 
always with the intense feeling toward all the 
children which is the real measure of her love 
for each ; and we know that she gives as gen- 
uine proof of her affection where the work 
she does for them takes her thoughts away 
from them, when she forgets them for a sea- 
son, because she is so busy for their good, as 
when she overwhelms them with caresses and 
tears. 



CHRISTIAN LIFE. 59 

So, too, the father of the household. He 
leaves them in the morning, is absorbed with 
the toilsome cares of his business, and may 
not be distinctly conscious of a thought or 
emotion going back to them during the day. 
Is it proved, then, that he does not love 
them? Time was, when the image of her 
who is now the mother of his children haunt- 
ed him like a dream, mingled with all his 
thoughts, could not be, would not be, ban- 
ished from his mind : it was like a light about 
him wherever he went, and a bliss in his 
thoughts however he was employed ; and thus 
his love was one perpetual living rapture. 
Because it is so no longer, does he therefore 
love her the less? Nay, he loves her the 
more, — with a sober, steadfast, habitual con- 
fidence and affection, which has lost its pas- 
sion, but has become an essential portion of 
his being, — intrudes on him less, but in its 
calmness and quietness blesses him more. It 
is only the idle dream of romance which ex- 
pects the rapture of the lover to be perpetu- 
ated in the sober certainty of waking bliss 
which makes the happiness of home. And 
so of all the affections. The religious affeo 



60 PROGRESS OF THE 

tions go by the same law. When newly 
awakened and fixed on the great realities of 
God and eternity,' they engross, and agitate, 
and absorb the soul ; there is no room for 
any other thought, affection, or care ; these 
fill and consume the whole being. But by- 
and-by the heart settles into a state of tran- 
quillity; and the man, occupied in obedience 
and duty, is excited less, and walks with his 
faith as an old and familiar friend. 

Let it, then, be no discouragement to the 
religious aspirant, that familiarity with his 
new life has abstracted something from the 
keen relish it had at first. Let him learn to 
find an equal satisfaction in the moderate and 
unexciting life of tranquil duty, that he at 
first found in the strong emotions of the mind. 
Acceptance with God depends on the heart 
being right with him ; and as you do not 
judge of the Tightness of your child's affec- 
tion toward yourself and the other children 
by its vehemence of expression, by its being 
easily called out in tears and vented in out- 
cries, but rather by its steady and unobtrusive 
watchfulness for your wishes, and carefulness 
not to offend, and fidelity, and kindness,- 



CHRISTIAN LIFE. 61 

so believe that the great Father judges of 
you, and approves you none the less because 
the strength of emotion with which you first 
came to him has subsided into an equable 
confidence and uniform obedience. 

And here I cannot refrain from saying a 
few words in relation to another source of 
discouragement, which often operates in con- 
nection with that, to the consideration of 
which this chapter is especially devoted. 

The Christian is very frequently disheart- 
ened, not only at finding less excitement and 
rapturous enjoyment in the religious life than 
he expected, but also at not discovering such 
obvious marks of progress in the advancing 
stages as at the commencement. But it is a 
very important truth for him who is going 
forward in the Christian life to remember, 
that the growth of character follows, in many 
respects, the analogy of all other growth. In 
its beginnings it is more perceptible ; its prog- 
ress in its first stages is more striking : an 
extraordinary difference is in a very short time 
noticed, after a man has positively changed 
from w r orldliness to religion. But the suc- 
ceeding steps become by-and-by less percep- 
6 



62 PROGRESS OF THE 

tible; and though actual, perhaps equal prog- 
ress may be made in a more advanced state 
of the Christian course, yet the work may 
seem to be almost stationary. An illustration 
of this may be found in the different appear- 
ances of motion in the rising and the me- 
ridian sun ; the former seeming to advance 
with rapidity, the latter hardly to move. Or 
take, for comparison, a work of art, a paint- 
ing. The artist takes a blank and unmeaning 
canvass. He sketches the outlines of his 
beautiful subject. A very short time suffices 
to exhibit great progress. The whole form 
and features come rapidly into view. But, as 
he approaches towards the finishing of his 
work, he labors the more delicate parts — he 
retouches, refines, perfects ; but it all makes 
little show : in truth, there may be more and 
more careful study, and anxious toil, and the 
highest efforts of his genius, and yet the 
amount of labor and thought, and the degree 
of improvement, be perceptible to none but 
a most observing and practised eye. So it is 
with the Christian character the nearer it 
approaches to perfection : there may be great 
watchfulness, laborious self-discipline, toil for 



CHRISTIAN LIFE. 63 

advancement, and a perpetual addition of 
those delicate strokes, those hues and shades 
of spiritual beauty, by which perfection is at- 
tained ; but no change shows itself, mean- 
while, to the common observer; the Chris- 
tian seems to others precisely where he was a 
month ago, and he himself may be dissatisfied 
at not perceiving any obvious marks of growth 
corresponding with his arduous labors. 

Let the Christian, then, not be deceived. 
Let him be sure that he judges himself by a 
right standard. It is true that he ought not 
to be too easily satisfied of his improvement ; 
but neither ought he to be discouraged through 
an irrational regard and judgment of his 
moral condition. When the oak was just 
springing from the ground, and rearing its 
stem in the increase of its first tender season, 
its growth of but twelve inches above the 
soil, whereon nothing but decayed leaves was 
manifest before, appeared conspicuous and 
considerable ; but now that it has waved its 
branches in the sunshine and winds of three- 
score summers, and sheltered two genera- 
tions of men with its beneficent shadow, and 
nurtured innumerable tribes of living crea- 



64 PROGRESS OF THE 

tures in its kindly arms, it may add the same 
measure of increase in a year to each of its 
hundred gigantic limbs, with no perceptible 
enlargement ; its real growth has been a hun- 
dred-fold what it was when most conspicuous 
to men, but no one observes or appreciates it. 
So it is with the Christian character : the 
more advanced its stages, the nearer it attains 
to perfection, its actual improvement, though 
greater than in the beginning, may neverthe- 
less be less perceptible. 

In view of the discouragements alluded to 
in this chapter, and of all others that might 
be enumerated, I would say to him who has 
really entered on a religious life, " You have 
taken the only rational course, the only safe 
course, the only truly happy course : perse- 
vere unto the end ; run with patience the 
race that is set before you ; fight the good 
fight, keep the faith, lay hold on eternal life. 
Light is sown for the righteous, and gladness 
for the upright in heart." 



CHRISTIAN LIFE. 65 



CHAPTER V. 

CONSIDERATIONS DESIGNED TO ASSIST THB 
CHRISTIAN IN THE SUCCESSFUL USE OF 
THE MEANS AND METHODS OF RELIGIOUS 
PROGRESS. 

In order to the successful use of the means 
of religious progress, so that they shall truly 
operate to a religious growth, it is essential 
so to employ them as to create an equal, 
healthy development of the character in all 
its parts, so as to avoid the inconsistency and 
distortion which are the consequence of too 
exclusive devotion to some, and the compara- 
tive neglect of others. A perfectly well pro- 
portioned religious character is rarely to be 
found ; but for that very reason it should be 
the more anxiously desired. 

Character is constituted of the state of 
the mind and affections, and the habits of 
life. These ought all to be in harmony with 
each other, — directed by the same princi- 
ples, exhibiting the same features, wearing 
6* 



66 PROGRESS OP THE 

the same complexion. If they disagree, there 
is a painful discordance perceived; some- 
thing is wrong; there is neglect of duty, 
blame somewhere. 

Now, the means of cultivating and perfect- 
ing the right state of mind and affections are, 
primarily, meditation and prayer, and those 
mental exercises of contemplation, self-exam- 
ination and study, by which the soul is di- 
rectly wrought upon and raised to a spiritual 
fervor. Thus it approaches to God, cherishes 
holy and benevolent desires, and comes to 
love and enjoy the things that are unseen and 
eternal. And when, from the seasons of 
contemplation and thought, the man goes into 
the scenes of active life, he carries with him 
this propensity to goodness, these desires to 
do well. He goes with a mind imbued with 
the sentiment of devotion, and the spirit of 
dutifulness. 

Thus far, well. But the character is not 
yet complete : the habits of his active life 
make part of it. And what are they 1 Do 
they correspond with this internal frame? 
Are they in harmony with these principles 
and sentiments 1 



CHRISTIAN LIFE. 67 

We are ready at first to ask, " How can they 
be otherwise?" But we are soon reminded 
that it is often even so. It is common to 
witness lamentable inconsistencies between 
the feelings and the conduct. Some men 
appear to live two lives. They seem to have 
two souls. In private thought and in familiar 
converse they are devout men. Their sen- 
sibilities are quick ; their emotions are strong ; 
their sense of God lively ; and they greatly 
enjoy their seasons of devotion and reading. 
But in the routine of life they are worldly, 
grasping, self-indulgent, devoted to gain, neg- 
lectful of trusts and duties, and far inferior 
to many who have no religious sensibility, 
who find little enjoyment in retirement and 
reflection, but who have accustomed them- 
selves to the most scrupulous fidelity in every 
passing hour of social life. 

It is to be with you, therefore, a matter 
of study and effort to carry the sentiment of 
the closet into action. The life of contem- 
plation must not contradict the life of action. 
It is but partially that character is formed 
which is formed only by thinking, musing, 
and purposing. It wants the completeness of 



DO PROGRESS OP THE 

active habits. It wants the test which is to 
be found only in life. It wants the principle 
of growth which can be found only in action. 
And this is what is particularly to be con- 
sidered in this connection — action is an 
essential and all-important means of religious 
growth; so much so, that even the contem- 
plative graces, the virtues of the mind, true 
affection, exalted principle, benevolent dispo- 
sitions, — which we are ready to believe thrive 
best in solitude ; to cultivate which, multi- 
tudes have shut themselves out from the world, 
that they might have nothing to do but to 
meditate, read, and pray, — even these fail of 
their true perfection unless quickened and 
ripened by action. For consider a moment. 
When the mind is thus excited and glowing 
with divine truth and virtuous thoughts, is 
it not all so much impulse to do something ? 
Does not the desire spring up spontaneously, 
prompting to act, — that is, to express itself? 
But there is no opportunity to act, and the 
impulse is denied. It is excited again, and 
again denied. What is the consequence? 
It is enfeebled. It becomes less and less 
strong. It fades and dies from the soul. 



CHRISTIAN LIFE. 69 

Generous impulses, not acted upon, perish; 
the soul loses its sensibility, becomes callous,, 
It has long been a familiar accusation against 
a certain sort of sentimental reading, that it 
tends to consume and waste the sympathies, 
and paralyze the affections, by highly excit- 
ing them, but allows them not expression in 
action, awakening the impulse, but refusing 
to gratify it. It is equally the case with all 
religious affections. And it is easy to under- 
stand how they who trust to them as if suffi- 
cient, and take no pains to carry them out in 
act, may come to exhibit two distinct charac- 
ters — elevated thought and glowing feeling, 
but selfish indolence of life and cold inac- 
tivity. x 
Consider, therefore, that action is an essen- 
tial means of religious growth. Follow out 
the highest impulses of your mind. Obey 
the suggestions of your conscience. Never 
deny the religious promptings of your feel- 
ings. Then you will establish the dominion 
of principle, the supremacy of conscience. 
Then all good feelings, having received their 
natural and intended gratification, will be 



70 PROGRESS OF THE 

encouraged and strengthened, because they 
have had their legitimate exercise. 

Remarks to the same purpose may be made 
respecting the relation which subsists be- 
tween principle and habit. Habit is a thing 
of tremendous power : it is sometimes om- 
nipotent in man ; and it is of the greatest 
consequence that its energies be as much as 
possible, and as easily as possible, secured 
on the side of virtue. It may be the greatest 
helper or the greatest hinderance to improve- 
ment. It was intended to be the former ; 
and yet to how many, through life, does it 
prove the latter ! In how many men does 
virtue make toilsome growth, because clogged, 
thwarted, depressed, by unfortunate habits! 
— habits formed in early life, established in 
the flesh, rooted in the afFections, woven into 
the daily routine of conduct, till they become 
a part of the very nature ; and the poor wretch 
whom they enthral is bound down to a mis- 
erable insignificance of character, and yet is 
wholly unaware of their deleterious predom-, 
inancc. They are habits, for example, of lux- 
urious living, of perpetual personal indul- 



CHRISTIAN LIFE. 71 

gence, of slothfulness, of mental inaction ; 
they are around him like a heavy and dead- 
ening atmosphere, through which his spirit 
has to make its way upward, and by which its 
flight is perpetually retarded. It has always 
been so, and he does not know it ; or, if he 
knows it, how difficult to enforce the remedy ! 
But in most instances he has no conception 
of the true nature of the evil which hinders 
him ; is not, perhaps, even aware of his griev- 
ous want of alacrity and progress — like the 
perpetual invalid, who has borne about with 
him from time immemorial a seated disorder 
which enfeebles him, but has no violent symp- 
toms, and who still engages in all the gen- 
eral duties of life, without the vigor and de- 
light that other men know, but with all the 
vigor and delight that he ever knew, and 
therefore without any consciousness of the 
extent of his own deficiency ; and who never 
can be conscious how far he is below the vigor 
and spirits of other men, except by being de- 
livered from his ailment and made like other 
men. So is it with him whose moral power 
is palsied by the unpropitious habits I have 
referred to : he never can know the degree 



72 PROGRESS OF THE 

in which they are an injury to him, until, 
having thrown them off, he sees how rapidly 
he rises without them. 

There is the greatest reason, then, that one 
should strictly examine himself in this re- 
spect ; that he may not be depressed forever 
by circumstances in his modes of life, of 
whose injurious influence he is ignorant, and 
which he might counteract if he knew them. 

But could he counteract them? It will 
not do to answer, No; and yet the difficulty 
is in many cases so all but insuperable, that we 
are ready to understand in their literal sense 
the words of the prophet, and believe that the 
undertaking is as desperately hopeless as that 
of changing the leopard's spots, and the Ethi- 
opian's skin. To take the most familiar ex- 
ample : there is the drunkard. He contin- 
ues such against his own will, in spite of his 
own resolutions, in contradiction to his own 
interest, tears, professions, purposes, princi- 
ples. His bad habit is but the type of all 
bad habits ; a little more desperate, perhaps, 
because it has worked itself into every fibre 
of the body, and made its gratification to be 
clamored for by every organ and function, 



CHRISTIAN LIFE. 73 

every muscle, sense, and nerve ; but all bad 
habits, in their place, exercise the same insane 
dominion. Sloth — is not the man ashamed 
of it? does he not make vows against it? 
does he not mourn at the ruin and disgrace 
it entails upon him? and yet he is slothful 
still. Ill-temper — does not the passionate 
mother, whose bursts of anger lead her to ill- 
treat the child that she loves, blush at her own 
shame, and condemn herself with bitterness 
and tears? and yet to-morrow the passion 
is her master again. Procrastination — with 
what keen anguish, with what abiding sense 
of degradation, with what remorse for friends 
neglected, duties omitted, precious opportu- 
nities of usefulness passed by, and occasions 
of honor and improvement lost forever, — 
with what compunction and self-condemna- 
tion, with what torment of unintermitting 
self-dissatisfaction, — does that inexplicable 
habit pursue its poor deluded victim ! And 
yet remorse and shame, and a thousand in- 
jurious results, and the appeal even of sober 
principle, are vain. He still submits to his 
master, and will be wiser to-morrow. Other 
instances any one can add. And they sug- 
7 



74 PROGRESS OF THE 

gest the fearful question, which almost stag- 
gers our hope as we reply to it — whether, in 
sober truth, a confirmed ill habit be not in- 
curable, and whether virtue have any prospect 
of gaining in the conflict. 

The best answer is found in the appeal to 
opposite facts. The worst habits in the most 
desperate cases, and under the most unprom- 
ising circumstances, have been corrected. 
The history of the Christian religion is filled 
with examples. It has shown its divine power 
in these triumphs, and proved, by the won- 
derful trophies of its grace, in the amazing 
conversions from sin which it has wrought, 
that however desperate may seem to be the 
struggle between principle and habit, yet the 
good is the stronger, and must prevail in the 
end, whenever it is faithfully and persever- 
ingly supported. 

But how much faith and what long per- 
severance it demands ! 

From these extreme cases, then, the Chris- 
tian, who is seeking improvement, must take 
both a warning and encouragement — a warn- 
ing that he examine his condition, and be 
fully acquainted with every circumstance in 



CHRISTIAN LIFE. 75 

his modes of life which threatens this ruinous 
ascendency over his principle ; and an en* 
couragement that, if he detect any which is 
interwoven with his whole being, so that to 
part with it is like parting with a right hand 
or right eye, he yet is able to do it, and to 
enjoy the happiness of deliverance. 

He is especially to learn the great duty of 
seeing to it, from the first, that all his per- 
sonal and social habits, his disposition of time, 
the order of his affairs, the customs of his 
daily life and business, be such as to facili- 
tate his virtuous purposes, — such as to make 
devotion and religion easy to him, — such as 
to make holy thoughts and benevolent actions 
always in place, never incongruous, never 
irksome, because evidently in the way of 
other affairs. By this method, he should give 
to goodness the fairest chance of obtaining 
a complete ascendency over him. Principle, 
finding all the habits of life and mind con- 
genial, would thrive, and strengthen, and 
assume the complete mastery. 

To make this yet the more sure, let him 
take pains directly to aid and encourage his 
principle ; not only by bringing it forward and 



76 PROGRESS OF THE 

making it active on great emergencies, but 
by allowing it, nay, calling on it, to exert 
itself constantly ; giving it small tasks ; cheer- 
ing it by the pleasure of small triumphs; and, 
in a word, by making even those lesser offices 
of duty and kindness, — which other men do 
of course, and without thinking, — by making 
even them matters of principle, — turning 
them into thoughtful acts of religious obedi- 
ence, doing them because they are consonant 
to faith, and are suitable to a spiritual and 
holy nature — whether he eats or drinks, or 
whatever he does, doing all to the glory of 
God, as to the Lord, and not to men. In this 
way, the full power of habit and all its noblest 
energies may be enlisted on the side of his 
improvement. Because, principle being often 
called into action, and being made the su- 
preme deciding authority, more frequently 
than any thing else, the habit of acting from 
principle will become stronger than any other 
habit; will overcome, suppress, exclude every 
hostile habit : the opposition between princi- 
ple and habit, which once so palsied the pur- 
pose and neutralized the efforts of virtue, will 
have ceased : and the forces once antago- 



CHRISTIAN LIFE. 77 

nlstic having become united in the alliance 
of truth, having become in fact one, there can 
be no longer any serious impediment to the 
onward progress of the soul. Being madt 
free from sin, ye will become servants to God t 
and have your fruit unto holiness. 



78 TB OGRESS OF THE 



CHAPTER VI. 

MA.XIMS ON WHICH THE EXPECTATION OF RE 
LIGIOUS PROGRESS IS TO BE BUILT. 

Let us suppose that the low views and the 
erroneous principles on which the Christian 
life is too frequently made to proceed are set 
aside. We next go on to state the maxims 
on which the expectation of Christian pro- 
gress must be built. 

And, first of all, it is evident that there 
must be a beginning. There is no such thing 
as setting out in the midst. There is a first 
step in every journey; there is the com- 
mencement of life in every germ. The reli- 
gious life of the soul can form no exception : 
it must have a first step, a commencement. 
Define it as you please, — let it be the act 
of the human reason alone, — let it be the 
moral character as exhibited in daily life, — 
let it have no authority or guide but the indi- 
vidual judgment and will ; still there must be 
a beginning somewhere, for the simple reason 



CHRISTIAN LIFE. 79 

that the individual who exercises the judg- 
ment and will has a beginning ; so that no 
one, by adopting a low idea of the nature of 
the religious life, can thereby escape the obli- 
gation to ascertain whether he have started 
on the true career, nor assume that he came 
into it as a matter of course when he came 
into the world. For into what did he then 
come ? Into those very habits of decent 
living which, in his view, are the Christian 
life ? Surely not. Those habits were formed 
at a time when he had power to form the 
opposite habits ; when he had the opportunity 
to decide for himself which he would adopt ; 
and when, from some motive or other, he 
did adopt the better rather than the worse. 
If he claims that these should satisfy his con- 
science, then he must be able to show that he 
adopted them of good intention, that he formed 
the purpose to possess and maintain this char- 
acter. Either he formed the purpose, or he 
did not form it : if he never formed the pur- 
pose, but is what he is by pure accident, then, 
of course, he will not pretend to any more 
virtue, than if, by a similar accident, he had 
become any other character; and, on the 



80 PROGRESS OF THE 

other hand, if he formed the purpose and 
pursued it by resolute forethought and plan, 
then he made a beginning. Therefore, nothing 
can be more absurd than the idea so com- 
monly and unthinkingly held by men, that 
they are in the midst of their religious pro- 
giess, when they never formed a distinct in- 
tention of pursuing it, and cannot prove that 
they ever laid an express plan in relation to it. 
Now, if this be true in regard to that low 
idea of the Christian life just referred to, 
how much more is it true of that correct and 
elevated idea which rises beyond the decen- 
cies of external morals, to the spiritual purity 
of the affections, companionship with Christ, 
and a universal holiness. This absolute and 
express devotion to things invisible and eter- 
nal, this perpetual and supreme reference to 
the spiritual, is not a state of mind which 
grows up spontaneously, which starts to being 
of itself, out of the incumbrances and occu- 
pations of this visible state ; — it must be the 
result of effort, the effect of design. No man 
can have thus gained the mastery over the 
sensible present without having intended it 
and labored for it : he could not do this with- 



CHRISTIAN LIFE. 81 

out fixing a mark on that era of his life; 
without being able to go back and say that 
then he made a beginning ; not perhaps at 
such a day or hour, or even absolutely such 
a year ; but certainly that at such a period of 
life he took a decided stand, and, by some 
process of mind more or less protracted, came 
to the express understanding with himself 
that he was bound by religious obligations. 

This is the first element in the religious 
life — this settled purpose of soul, this dis- 
tinct, acknowledged, cherished intention and 
plan to live for heaven. He that cannot 
convict himself of having deliberately formed 
such a purpose, who is not conscious of 
having meditated and acted upon such a 
plan, talks idly when he asserts that he is in 
the midst of a Christian course. He deceives 
himself. He wants the first element of the 
religious life. 

Next to this purpose, religious progress 
demands effort. The purpose must not die 
in inaction ; it must not, as, alas ! is too fre- 
quently the case, waste itself in reverie and 
musing. That dreamy state of the mind, 
which loves to dwell in contemplation, — to 



82 PROGRESS OF THE 

sit with the eyes half closed and gaze on the 
visions of glory which the fancy brings before 
it, — to think of the admirable things that 
may be done, and the grand designs which it 
would be delightful to accomplish, — is an 
unprofitable state, and does little to advance 
the character. It is likely to enervate rather 
than to improve it. No purpose is of any 
value which does not ripen into action ; and 
the ever-present purpose of Christian pro- 
gress is nought, unless accompanied by ever- 
active effort. 

Inaction is the death of all virtue, the palsy 
of the character. It accounts satisfactorily 
for the backwardness and meanness of Chris- 
tian men in Christian attainments. One 
might almost fancy, from the sluggishness 
with which men hold their faith, that, in 
adopting the gospel as their hope and rule, 
they had simply placed themselves on board 
some convenieut vessel sent for their deliver- 
ance, and now were quietly to float down the 
gentle stream to the great city of their rest; 
instead of which, all experience and all rev- 
elation teach them, that they are embarked 
on a wide and perilous ocean, where they 



CHRISTIAN LIFE. 83 

must watch and toil, and where they can 
make no progress except they make effort. 

Our infatuation on this point is dreadful. 
Nothing else comes without labor and perse- 
verance. Learning, accomplishments, dis- 
tinction, wealth, — they are all earned; and 
no man who desires them hesitates to pay 
for them the full price, enormous as it some- 
times is, at which alone they can be pos- 
sessed. But that greatest and highest attain- 
ment, a perfect human character, is to come 
of itself. The calm peace of self-govern- 
oient, — the holy luxury of heavenly-mind- 
edness — the lofty and complacent dignity 
of spiritualized affections — the honor of being 
like God, and glory of entering with Jesus 
Christ into immortal purity and love, — this 
we expect to obtain by wishing : this vast 
acquisition, this unlimited and illimitable 
boon, we look at, we admire, we long for, we 
do not doubt we shall possess ; and yet we 
make for it nothing like the effort which we 
make to get bread for our children and or- 
naments to our houses. 

No wonder, then, that the Christian com- 
munity improves so slowly. No wonder that 



84 PROGRESS OF THE 

exemplary patterns of Christian attainment 
are so rare. No wonder that, instead of 
seeing all around us those men of the beati- 
tudes, those partakers of the divine nature, 
those illustrious imitators of God, of whom 
the New Testament speaks, and whom Christ 
meant to fashion as his peculiar people, we 
are compelled to mourn over inconsistency 
and frailty — compelled to hide a multitude of 
sins in our good men with the mantle of a 
wide charity — compelled to extenuate and 
apologize for our own and our brethren's 
faults, on the score of that human imperfec- 
tion, which it is our shame that we have not 
long ago surmounted and repressed. No 
wonder that, in this laxness of exertion toward 
Christian perfection, the world still waits to 
comprehend the meaning of that description 
which speaks of a "royal priesthood, ,, "sons 
of Cod," " perfect men in Christ Jesus." 
For where are they ? Here and there one, 
just to satisfy us that the Word of God de- 
scribes no impossibility — just enough to cast 
unspeakable reproach and shame on the indo- 
lence of the backward multitude of believers, 



CHRISTIAN LIFE. 85 

— backward, because they make no true 
effort to go forward. 

But it is not this listlessness and inaction 
alone, to which we are to look as the cause 
of this imperfect measure of Christian attain- 
ment amongst us; — much is to be imputed 
also to a certain vagueness in respect to the 
nature and order of Christian progress. Men 
do not distinctly perceive what it is, nor how 
it should proceed. The same inaccurate and 
cloudy notions already adverted to, which per- 
suade them that they are in the successful 
prosecution of a work they have never ex- 
pressly begun, nor formed any express pur- 
pose of doing, lead them also to believe that 
it will be, by-and-by, successfully completed 
in some general way ; but they have not de- 
scribed to themselves in what way it is to be. 
They indistinctly see they must go forward ; 
but they have no clear, accurate idea of the 
path, and no idea whatever of the stages by 
which they are to proceed. In a word, their 
notion of the whole subject is general and 
confused, amounting to nothing more than 
that they are to be improving themselves and 
advancing toward heaven ; that they are to 
8 



86 PROGRESS OP THE 

grow better as they grow older ; — but as to 
analyzing this idea, and reaching' an actual 
understanding of the several points in regard 
to which they are to grow better, — this i& 
foreign from their thought ; and no wonder 
that this vagueness of purpose keeps them 
stationary. 

The next point, therefore, to be considered 
is, tha*t religious progress is to be made by 
stages. It is not merely proceeding, but pro- 
ceeding from one point to another. It is not 
merely becoming better, but becoming better 
first in one respect and then in another. 

All progress is from stage to stage. In 
the processes of nature it is so ; — first the 
blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the 
ear; — a continued growth, but arriving at 
and passing certain epochs or periods as it 
proceeds. So in the growth of the human 
frame, and of the human mind ; so in the 
advancement of society and knowledge. No 
science can be taught, no art can be learned, 
except in passing from step to step ; one por- 
tion must be acquired first as a preparation 
for another, and the third can be reached only 
through the full comprehension of the second. 



CHRISTIAN LIFE. 87 

Why should religious knowledge and Chris- 
tian character be exceptions? Why should 
we not expect in their pursuit also to find 
natural steps of advancement, which invite us 
to aim at one attainment in the first place, 
and to make that a stepping-stone for the 
next? And if our religious progress were 
divided out for us into portions, would not 
its accomplishment be more certain and more 
satisfactory ? 

It may not be easy — indeed, it is very 
difficult — to state distinctly and with philo- 
sophical exactness the successive stages of 
the religious progress ; and for this reason, 
among others, that they cannot be precisely 
the same to all men. Even the author of 
that celebrated description of the Christian 
life which depicts the Pilgrim's Progress, 
though of a class of believers who have gone 
as far as any in making Christian experience 
of the same undeviating type in all individu- 
als — has yet found it necessary to allow great 
varieties in the several histories which he 
framed. Greater varieties still will be allowed 
by most persons who consider carefully the 
infinite diversities which exist in the natural 



88 PROGRESS OF THE 

tempers and dispositions of men, and the cir- 
cumstances of education, society, business, 
companions, forms of life, &c. in which men 
are placed. It is inevitable that, under this 
state of things, no minute account can be 
given of the stages of Christian progress 
which will precisely apply to all persons. 
We can state nothing more than a few general 
principles, of whose varying application every 
man must judge for himself. 

Thus we may say, first, this culture of 
character which you have undertaken is a 
vast and complicated thing: it is not one 
thing, but many ; and it demands equa) watch- 
fulness and effort in many directions^ as. to 
the thoughts, the passions, the words the 
actions. It demands right affections toward 
all objects that concern you in this world, 
and in the invisible world ; the proper balance 
of the affections; the due adjustment of the 
habits with the principle ; the true combi- 
nation of freedom and restraint, of contem- 
plation with action, of firmness with gentle- 
ness. It demands knowledge, self-restraint, 
watchfulness, and action, in so many direc- 
tions, on so many subjects, and so uninter- 



CHRISTIAN LIFE. 89 

mittingly, that to undertake the whole at 
once, to assume the equal charge of all, and 
attempt their faithful regulation at the same 
moment, is a task that might well seem des- 
perate. The work must be divided and clas- 
sified ; the field must be separated into por- 
tions ; special attention must be first bestowed 
on this, and then on that, and the huge labor 
be facilitated by partition, the long journey 
accomplished by stages. 

Then, secondly, as respects the precise 
order in which the several objects shall be 
taken up and accomplished, it is clear that 
the first care should be to establish the do- 
minion of some great leading principle in 
the soul, some one master authority, to whose 
pervading influence all shall submit, and from 
whose absolute word there shall be no appeal. 
This will be to lay the foundation of the 
character steadfast and strong, and to further 
and facilitate the unity and compactness of 
the whole structure. And the Creator has 
provided for this in the very constitution he 
has framed, by making conscience the su- 
preme power, and ordaining that every faculty 
and disposition shall bow to its sway. To 
8* 



90 PROGRESS OP THE 

assure to conscience its rightful sovereignty 
is, therefore, the first object ; to this one great 
end the attention should be directed and the 
chief effort made, because, until conscience 
sits monarch in the soul, all effort after per- 
manent moral advancement must be vain ; 
and afterward none can be lost; and in the 
mean time, while this is going on, much dis- 
cipline of the heart and # the life will be un- 
consciously accomplished which otherwise 
might demand serious labor. Let the vigor 
of the soul, then, be concentrated to the 
accomplishment of this result, rather than 
dissipated and enfeebled in the attempt to 
perform several acts of inferior moment. 

Having made some progress in this great 
work, there is another distinct object which 
may in the same way command the special 
attention of the soul, and be made matter 
of studious and almost exclusive consider- 
ation — the predominant affection, namely. 
This is of not inferior consequence to that 
just mentioned. That to which the heart is 
devoted decides the character ; and if the 
character is matter of solicitude, especially 
is it matter of solicitude to decide what shall 



CHRISTIAN LIFE. 91 

be mistress of the heart. Here the case is 
plain. Love is the first and second thing ; 
love is the fulfilling of the law; he that 
dwells in love dwells in God. This is the 
principle that must sway the affections : when 
it does, the law will be fulfilled, and the soul 
will dwell with God, without any minute and 
painful toiling after the petty details of duty. 
Let this, then, be a distinct study, — the sep- 
arate and express aim, — until the character- 
istics of divine love are impressed deeply on 
the heart, and all meaner affections recognize 
and bow to its dominion. 

Another distinct object must be, to gain an 
ever-wakeful consciousness of the divine pres- 
ence. The good child must learn to feel the 
Father's presence, must never lose sight of 
his eye ; and it is essential to spiritual growth 
that the spirit human should be always aware 
of its contact with the Spirit divine. This is 
to be learned. This must become a habit. 
And it can only be by making it a subject of 
distinct study and effort; so that the soul, 
which the officious senses would restrict to 
this visible scene of things, may be able to 



92 PROGRESS OP THE 

struggle away from them, and look alway at 
the things which are unseen and eternal. 

Let these suffice for specimens of what is 
intended by stages in the religious progress. 
I trust I have said enough to exhibit my 
meaning clearly. The doctrine I would in- 
culcate is, that, instead of proposing to our- 
selves, in general terms, the vast and vague 
purpose of becoming religious, we should 
parcel out our duty into its natural depart- 
ments, and make each the object of separate 
discipline, until we have become in some mea- 
sure adepts in it, and then attend in the same 
way to another. Of course, this method can- 
not be pursued to the letter ; no one can 
exclusively cultivate his conscience, and have 
no care of his affections ; nor cherish the 
thought of God, and yet neglect his con- 
science. On the contrary, attention to either 
of these objects greatly tends to ^ix attention 
on the other two; but unquestionably the 
greatest proficiency in regard to each and to 
all would be achieved oy an effort specially 
directed to one at a time. 

This general principle might be illustrated 



CHRISTIAN LIFE. 93 

and explained to a much greater extent; but 
enough has been said to render it intelligi- 
ble, and show its application. One thing at 
a time, though a rule impossible to be literally 
adhered to, is yet, as far as it may be observed, 
as wise in the progress of the religious char- 
acter as in any other important affair. 



BND. 



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